tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67002835146033331872018-02-19T08:40:06.388-08:00Rights & Rightlessness: Rhoda Hassmann on Human RightsRhoda Howard-Hassmannnoreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-24197189997367320492018-02-12T13:26:00.000-08:002018-02-12T13:26:52.400-08:00Another Campus Speech Code Fiasco: Wilfrid Laurier University<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">Another Campus Speech Code Fiasco: Wilfrid Laurier University<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In late 2017, the institution from which I had recently retired, Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU), was embroiled in a free speech fiasco.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate teaching assistant in the department of Communications Studies, decided to show her students a clip from a debate on a program called <i>The Agenda</i>, put out by TVO (TV Ontario). This is a highly reputable program, along the lines of PBS debate shows in the US. One of the participants in the debate was Jordan Peterson, a professor at the University of Toronto who opposes the usage of gender-neutral pronouns—or at least, opposes policing professors and students to make sure they use such pronouns.<o:p></o:p></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ntr3G07rfoc/WoIFySwHl_I/AAAAAAAAAuM/qaEJ5nSQapcGP8EoyhFgK1KcBMmu64DzQCLcBGAs/s1600/download%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="121" data-original-width="171" height="141" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ntr3G07rfoc/WoIFySwHl_I/AAAAAAAAAuM/qaEJ5nSQapcGP8EoyhFgK1KcBMmu64DzQCLcBGAs/s200/download%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lindsay Shepherd</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After she showed this clip, Ms. Shepherd was asked to attend a meeting with two professors and one individual from the university’s Diversity and Equity Office. Her supervising professor, Nathan Rambukkana, told her that there had been “one or more” complaints under the WLU&nbsp; Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy and Procedures (GSVP) about her decision to show it. When she replied that she was merely trying to introduce her students to both side of the debate, he went so far as to ask her whether she would show both sides of a debate about Hitler. He and also claimed, absolutely erroneously, that Ms. Shepherd’s decision to show her students this clip violated the students’ rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and/or the Ontario Human rights Code.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Unfortunately for her interlocutors, Ms. Shepherd recorded her interview with them and took it to the press. It instantly became a national news story about freedom of speech, embarrassing WLU. The President of WLU issued a formal apology to Ms. Shepherd and appointed an independent investigator into the incident. <a href="https://www.wlu.ca/news/spotlights/2017/dec/president-statement-re-independent-fact-finder-report.html">https://www.wlu.ca/news/spotlights/2017/dec/president-statement-re-independent-fact-finder-report.html</a>&nbsp;This investigator, among other things, discovered that none of Ms. Shepherd’s students had complained about her. But someone had overheard some of her students discussing the clip.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How, one might ask, was this possible?&nbsp; The answer is the content of the GSVP document, which can be found at <a href="https://www.wlu.ca/about/governance/assets/resources/12.4-gendered-and-sexual-violence-policy-and-procedures.html">https://www.wlu.ca/about/governance/assets/resources/12.4-gendered-and-sexual-violence-policy-and-procedures.html</a>. It is supposed to be a document laying out procedures in the case of sexual assault, harassment, etc., but its drafters took it upon themselves to also police freedom of speech. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The GSVP defines&nbsp; “Gendered Violence” &nbsp;&nbsp;as…. “an act or actions that reinforce gender inequalities resulting in physical, sexual, emotional, economic or mental harm. This violence includes sexism, gender discrimination, gender harassment, biphobia, transphobia, homophobia and heterosexism, intimate partner violence, and forms of Sexual Violence. This violence can take place on any communication platform, (e.g. graffiti, online environment, and through the use of phones” (Definitions, Clause 3:02).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This means that under the GSVP, speech is considered to be violence, as the stress on communications platforms shows. There is no distinction in this definition between actual physical violence and potentially (depending on the eyes of the beholder) offensive speech. Nor are there any guidelines as to when speech might be considered “violent,” as opposed to merely offensive to some. While Canada does have a hate speech law, the bar is set very high for prosecutions and convictions, and in general freedom of speech is protected.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There is no mention in the document, either as a preamble or elsewhere, about the university’s primary purpose of protecting academic freedom and freedom of speech. Nor is there any mention that Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The GSVP claims the right to police the speech of any member of the university community at WLU (Definitions, clause 3.04). It especially claims the right to police the speech of any student “regardless of their position or role or time of incident (e.g. evenings, weekends and holidays)—when on University property or when off campus and there is an impact on their academic program or campus life (for e.g. in residence, at the gym, etc.) [Sic, Jurisdiction/Scope clause 7:00]. &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The GSVP further stipulates that third parties can make complaints about an individual’s speech, saying that those who have experienced sexual violence and “those who have become aware of an incident” can report it (Definitions: Clause 3:07), and that anyone making such a complaint can do so anonymously (Student Procedures, Clause 2.01). Presumably, this is what permitted someone who overheard Ms. Shepherd’s students talking about her class to make a complaint.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The GSVP procedures for adjudicating complaints were updated on December 17, 2017, following the national publicity over the Lindsay Shepherd incident. But it is biased from the start. Complainants are free to identify themselves, or to ask that those assisting them identify them, as “survivors” throughout. Thus, the presumption that the action or speech complained about is true permeates the procedures.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On the other side, there is no assurance of due process for the individual against whom a complaint is made. Even in the updated version of the document, bias is evident against the accused person. If he (or occasionally she) does not comply with the university rules, s/he will endure “further disciplinary action,” thus assuming that disciplinary action is automatically forthcoming. (Policy: Clause 8.03) Moreover, the personnel of the SGVP are available for support to the complainant, but not to the respondent, who is on his or her own.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here are some useful rules for drafting university harassment documents. They are derived in part from the two years I spent at McMaster University, 1992-1994, chairing a committee to draft anti-harassment and anti-discrimination documents, with the aid of a legal scholar. I was given this job after I stood up in the McMaster Senate to denounce a proposed document that, in my view, severely violated the due process rights of accused harassers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">1&nbsp; &nbsp; 1.<span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Always make sure that the document is drafted by, or with the assistance of, a lawyer with experience in administrative law in the jurisdiction in which the university is located.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">2&nbsp; &nbsp; 2.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In deciding what to prohibit, never exceed what is prohibited by the law of the jurisdiction in which the University is located.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">3&nbsp; &nbsp; 3.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Do not have two sections, one written by people with a political/ideological agenda, and one written by people familiar with the law and the rules of due process.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">4&nbsp; &nbsp; 4. A</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">lways makes sure that due process is absolutely protected.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">5&nbsp; &nbsp; 5.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Always include a preamble about the importance of, and protections for, freedom of speech and academic freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Had WLU followed this advice, it might not have found itself with the problems it faced last year.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the meantime, I would advise any parents thinking of sending their child to WLU or any other Ontario university to carefully investigate its policies and procedures regarding speech and sexual harassment, before making a final decision. Otherwise, the parents might find themselves paying hefty legal fees to defend their children against charges for offenses that may be deemed contrary to the&nbsp; the uthe university’s speech code, but that are not crimes in Ontario.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-61190007489786661992018-01-15T12:06:00.004-08:002018-01-15T12:06:59.488-08:00Women Perpetrators of Crimes against Humanity<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt;">Women perpetrators of crimes against humanity<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">In 2010, a judge in the United Kingdom denied refugee status to a Zimbabwean woman, known as SK. According to a report by David Gardner in the South African <i>Mail Online</i>, (“Woman who took part in violent attacks on farmers in Zimbabwe denied UK asylum” 16 September 2010) SK had admitted attacking white farmers and beating up ten black workers and their families; she beat one woman so badly that she thought the woman would die. But she said she had done so to prove her loyalty to Zimbabwe’s then dictator, Robert Mugabe, who was deposed in late 2017 by a military coup. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">Zimbabwe had been ruled by Mugabe’s terrorist dictatorship since 2000. Mugabe encouraged “land invasions” of white-owned farms, driving almost all white farmers out of the country. This seriously undermined the country’s capacity to produce food, as the “liberated” lands were distributed to Mugabe’s family and cronies, many incapable of large-scale farming. About 1.5 million black farm workers and their families were also driven off the land. Meantime, in “operation drive out trash” another 1.4 million people were driven out of cities in 2005, losing their homes and livelihoods. Zimbabwe went from being a bread-basket of eastern African to dependency on the World Food Program. Many Zimbabweans had barely enough food for one meal a day. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">Women members of the opposition to Mugabe, and women whose only crime was to be related to members of the opposition, were systematically raped and tortured, especially during the election period in 2008. Some women resorted to prostitution to support themselves because the economy was in such disarray as a result of Mugabe’s policies. Millions of women and their children had barely enough to eat. Hospitals and schools closed. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">SK was a woman; we tend to think of women as victims of political violence, not its perpetrators. According to Gardner’s report, SK didn’t claim that she was entitled to any special treatment because she was a woman, but the judge seemed to think he should nevertheless comment on her gender. He compared SK to female Nazi concentration camp guards. While those women did not initiate the Nazi policy of genocide, they did willingly carry it out; they were not forced to be guards. Indeed, according to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in his controversial 1997 book <i>Hitler’s Willing Executioners, </i>some of these women exceeded their orders at the end of the war, driving Jewish women prisoners to their deaths on forced marches even after they had been ordered to be less cruel, as the leaders of Germany were afraid of the consequences once the Allies took over. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">But the judge did not have to look so far afield for examples of savage women to whom to compare SK. During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the Minister for Women’s Affairs encouraged her own son to rape Tutsi women. Three Rwandan nuns were convicted in Belgium for the crimes they committed in Rwanda. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">These horrible instances contradict many feminists’ assumptions that women are more caring than men, more empathetic, far less likely to commit crimes against humanity or genocide than men. What is SK’s responsibility? She claimed she had to prove her loyalty to Mugabe, and that may be true: until a couple of months ago in Zimbabwe, if you were not for Mugabe, you were against him. But how far did she have to go?&nbsp; Did she really have to participate in land invasions, or did she do so at least partly by choice? From 2000 to 2017 Zimbabwe was a free zone for people who hated whites.&nbsp; Even if SK hated whites and wanted them driven out of Zimbabwe, what motivated her to beat up fellow black women? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">We do not know from Gardner’s report if SK was an educated, upper-class Zimbabwean or a poor person. Nor do we know if that should matter. Should a person who is not educated be assumed not to be able to tell right from wrong, like some of the male killers in Rwanda who after their orgy of bloodshed regained their senses? While international courts do take into consideration whether people who commit crimes against humanity are leaders or followers, they do not let anyone off on the grounds that he was just following orders. Nor is lack of education an excuse, although it may be a mitigating factor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">The judge in the UK made the right decision. Women, like men, have to take responsibility for the crimes they commit. Otherwise, feminism simultaneously demands equality and undermines&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif;">it by suggesting that women are less capable than men of morality and good judgment. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif;">&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif;">Note:&nbsp; I originally wrote this blog for another site in 2010, but decided it was worth updating a re-posting here.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">suggesting that women are less capable than men of morality and good judgment. &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-9173103753329113602018-01-10T11:38:00.003-08:002018-01-10T11:38:56.454-08:00Statelessness in the Caribbean by Kristy Belton: Book Note<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some scholars maintain that in developed democracies, legal citizenship is losing its salience, as such democracies tend to grant most human rights to everyone resident in their territories, even including undocumented (‘illegal”) migrants. Kristy Belton disputes this contention. She argues that even if migrants are afforded human rights in some democracies, this privilege does not extend to the stateless.&nbsp; You can find this argument in her 2017 book,&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><i>Statelessness in the Caribbean: The Paradox of Belonging in a Postnational World, </i>published by University of Pennsylvania Press.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Belton argues that statelessness in the 21<sup>st</sup>century is very different from the statelessness that Hannah Arendt analyzed in her <i>Origins of Totalitarianism</i>. Arendt wrote about stateless migrants, wandering the world to find a place that would take them in after their own countries expelled them or forced them to flee. By contrast, Belton argues, in the 21st century many people are rendered stateless <u>in situ, </u>in the place where they are born.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlZ9wMZWTO8/WlZrvbJpHRI/AAAAAAAAAt8/Y65aZFjpSLAc2OaN8iCWhP7x3W0MiCbgQCLcBGAs/s1600/15739.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="243" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlZ9wMZWTO8/WlZrvbJpHRI/AAAAAAAAAt8/Y65aZFjpSLAc2OaN8iCWhP7x3W0MiCbgQCLcBGAs/s320/15739.jpg" width="210" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Belton’s evidence for this contention is drawn from her case studies of the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. Both are democracies, and both have significant minority populations of people of Haitian descent. Drawing on her own interviews with local officials, NGO actors, stateless individuals and others, as well as upon interviews conducted by other individuals and organizations, Belton paints a picture of people living in limbo or liminality, part of the society but not formally members of the polity, in effect “noncitizen insiders”(p. 10). Technically eligible for Haitian citizenship, they are stateless <u>de facto,</u> as they are often not aware of their eligibility and in any case, do not wish to be considered Haitian.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These individuals are not wandering stateless migrants: they were born in the Bahamas or the Dominican Republic but are not entitled to citizenship in those two countries, at least not at birth.&nbsp; In the Bahamas, they have a narrow one-year window at the age of eighteen to apply for citizenship. During this period they are often rendered <u>de jure</u> stateless for a few months, as they are obliged to renounce their nominal Haitian citizenship before being registered as Bahamian citizens. In the Dominican Republic, things are much worse. Not only may people of Haitian descent not obtain citizenship at birth, but a law passed in 2010 retroactively deprives hundreds of thousands of citizenship. Only those of Haitian descent who can prove they are descended from individuals born in the Dominican Republic before 1929; that is, four generations ago, are now entitled to citizenship. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bureaucratic inertia and deliberate obfuscation of the seemingly non-discriminatory rules surrounding citizenship compound the disadvantages imposed on people of Haitian descent by these laws. Often individuals born in the Dominican Republic do not know that they are actually considered to be citizens of Haiti, nor do they know how to go about obtaining confirmation of that citizenship. When persons of Haitain descent turn 18 in the Bahamas, they may not know of the one-year window available to apply for registration as citizens. They may also be denied the documents, such as birth registration, needed to make their applications. Some are also victims of gender-biased policies that grant citizenship to children of citizen fathers born abroad, but not to mothers in the same circumstances. Belton argues that they should have the right to know about citizenship rules, and be ensured the right to judicial review of sometimes arbitrary decisions about their citizenship.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The quasi-stateless individuals of Haitian descent are often victims of racism, enduring discrimination in employment, housing and education. In the Dominican Republic, people identify themselves as white or “Indio” and look down on black people of Haitian descent. In both countries they are considered impure, equated with dirt and criminality. Belton quotes heartbreaking stories from her informants of deplorable living conditions, racist school bullying, and opportunities denied.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Technically speaking, many of the “stateless” individuals of Haitian descent in the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic are not stateless; if they knew how to go about it, they could claim Haitian citizenship.&nbsp; But that is not the citizenship they want. They want to be citizens of the countries where they were born and raised, where they attended school, where their families are. They want to realize their ambitions, to get an education and a job and start a family, in the country to which they are attached. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Without legal citizenship, these <u>de facto </u>stateless individuals cannot realize their life projects. Bahamian-born minors of Haitian descent possess identity documents, but cannot use them for travel; thus young people are unable to compete in international sports competitions or accept scholarships to study abroad. Persons of Haitian descent in both countries are at high risk of illiteracy, undermining their capacity to understand the procedures and documents necessary for them to obtain citizenship. They are ghost people, un-noticed and uncared for, denied social membership in the places of their birth and personal identification.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Belton closes her book with an eloquent plea for citizenship to be considered an aspect of global distributive justice which, she argues, should not be confined to material goods. It should encompass citizenship, necessary in order to enjoy all other human rights. Citizenship is also necessary to the right to belong, to feel oneself part of the community in which one has grown up, and part of the territory to which one is attached. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Everyone, contends Belton, should have the right to citizenship in the place of one’s birth. In making this argument she draws upon ideas of social membership and sense of place. In the light of her two case studies, this assertion makes sense. But it might not make sense for the many people who are victims of prior forced displacement or who are born in countries of which they would rather not be citizens. The next step, then, is a right to migrate. But such a right would upset completely the sovereign prerogative of all states to decide who should be its members, regardless of the criteria they use.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Belton’s arguments are sophisticated and theoretically rich, and her compassion for the subjects of her research suffuses her analysis. This is an excellent study of what might be considered the “forgotten” stateless, people who are not members of stateless groups such as the Rohingya of Myanmar, but are rather individuals forced into social liminality and legal insecurity by borders, immigration laws, and racism. &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Note: I wrote this review for <i>Human Rights Quarterly, </i>whose editor, Bert Lockwood, kindly agreed to let me post irt on my blog as well.&nbsp;</span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><!--[if supportFields]><span style='font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-no-proof:yes'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span><span style='font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>ADDIN EN.REFLIST <span style='mso-no-proof: yes'><span style='mso-element:field-separator'></span></span></span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-68565073207479397702018-01-04T07:26:00.000-08:002018-01-04T07:26:19.267-08:00Another Day in the Death of America, by Gary Younge: Book Note<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">Another Day in the Death of America, by Gary Younge: Book Notes<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gary Younge, a black British journalist who lived in Chicago for several years, is the author of <i>Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives</i> (Nation Books, 2016). Each chapter documents the life and death of a young American between 9 and 19 who died by gunfire in the 24-hour overnight period of November 22-23 2013; all are male and most black or Hispanic. This was, incidentally, the 50<sup>th</sup>anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, though that doesn’t seem to have affected Younge’s decision to choose that particular date. On an average day, seven American children will be shot dead.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y1a3lscQbSo/Wk5G898F9FI/AAAAAAAAAts/8to0_AAbxoc0QT2Y7klmNzIE8nhaPnjegCLcBGAs/s1600/Gary_Younge_%252814477965983%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="146" data-original-width="220" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y1a3lscQbSo/Wk5G898F9FI/AAAAAAAAAts/8to0_AAbxoc0QT2Y7klmNzIE8nhaPnjegCLcBGAs/s1600/Gary_Younge_%252814477965983%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gary Younge</td></tr></tbody></table><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Three of Younge’s observations particularly struck me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first was the perhaps universal tendency to assume that victims of crimes have to be innocent; if not, they somehow deserve their fate. The opening chapter in <i>Another Day </i>recounts the story of Jaiden Dixon. Jaiden was nine when one day he opened the door&nbsp; to the father of one of his older half-brothers. The father shot him, then sped away to shoot a woman he’d previously been involved with. She survived the shooting, and was terrified that he’d find her again until she was told that the police had killed him.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This was a story of domestic violence, and Jaiden, by all accounts a sweet child, was clearly innocent; his murderer was trying to get revenge on his mother. Several of the other murder victims were older teens, some of whom had been gang members and one of whom, Younge observes, was just as likely to have been the perpetrator as the victim of murder. In the public eye and that of the media, Younge observes, these victims somehow “deserved” their fates in a way that Jaiden did not. But as a black child, had he been a few years older his death might have garnered less sympathy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Younge’s second observation was the way that everyone accepted the presence of guns in their lives as inevitable and a fact of life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The only white child to be killed in this one-day period was 11-year-old Tyler Dunn. Tyler was playing with his friend Brandon in Brandon’s house. Brandon’s father, Jerry, was supposed to be supervising them, but he left them alone while he was working. The boys found a gun, assumed it was unloaded and played with it: Brandon killed Tyler. Jerry, a convicted felon, was found guilty of improper safeguarding of his guns, and inadequate supervision of his son.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tyler’s family just assumed that nothing could be done about guns. And tragically, this was also the attitude of the black and Hispanic families featured in the book.&nbsp; Edwin Rajo was accidentally killed by a female friend when they, too, were fooling around with guns without adult supervision. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor was this attitude at all unrealistic. Despite repeated surveys showing that the majority of Americans support gun control, the power of the National Rifle Association over candidates for election is so powerful that nothing is ever done, even after the Sandy Hook tragedy, when a mentally-ill young man killed 20 tiny children and their teachers. Then-President Obama tried and failed to institute tighter controls over gun sales at that time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The black families in this book react to the presence of guns by trying to control their children’s access to “the street”. The best way to protect them against random gunfire or mistaken identity (such as wearing the wrong color hoodie in an area in which gang members identify themselves by the color they wear) is to keep them indoors as much as possible, ferrying them by car from home to school to church and other activities. Younge points out that black parents are just as concerned as white parents about their children’s safely, but they have fewer resources to protect them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The third observation that really stuck with me is Younge’s description of some of the worst areas of South Chicago and Dallas as “open-air prisons.”&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Housing, schools, public amenities, and private businesses are all run-down or lacking in these areas. So also are employment opportunities; indeed, for many young men, the only available employment is drug-dealing or other forms of crime. Tax-payers in wealthy areas of the same cities seem happy to let their municipal authorities neglect these areas. Murders of blacks by blacks are not a matter of concern, sometimes not even reported in the press, other times meriting only a short paragraph in the local paper. The implication here is that as long as the imprisoned population stays in these areas, they are free to kill each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The gun culture in the US is inexplicable to the rest of the Western world. It seems to have something to do with libertarian political culture, as well as particularly wrong-headed interpretations of the US Constitution. As a Canadian, I worry about its spread here, as well as the illegal importing of guns. We too have gun-related crime, and we too have citizens who believe that everyone should have the right to own a gun for self-defense. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But Younge shows us how gun culture, like everything else, is tied to racism, economic inequality, and publicand public neglect of black and Hispanic citizens. &nbsp;&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-42279491169409740592017-12-29T13:13:00.000-08:002017-12-29T13:22:39.414-08:00The Golden Legend by Nadeem Islam: Book Note<div class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Golden Legend</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Nadeem Aslam: Book Note<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A couple of weeks ago (mid-Dec 2017) I read <i>The Golden Legend,</i> a novel by the British-Pakistani writer Nadeem Aslam. According to his Wikipedia biography, Aslam has lived in the UK since he was 14, when his father, a communist, fled the regime of President Zia.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tX2djMPmCIs/Wkavk_FZ_II/AAAAAAAAAtc/-tQIDGobPhwyGX4MtchLCAmBgqsxyVZugCLcBGAs/s1600/th%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="103" data-original-width="136" height="151" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tX2djMPmCIs/Wkavk_FZ_II/AAAAAAAAAtc/-tQIDGobPhwyGX4MtchLCAmBgqsxyVZugCLcBGAs/s200/th%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nadeem Aslam</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a good novel for anyone not familiar with life in Pakistan in the era of militant Islamists, US drone strikes, and police and military corruption. The main interest of the novel, though, is the difficulty of being Christian in Pakistan. The story recounts the trials of three Christian Pakistanis. Christians are a minority in Pakistan, about 1 per cent of the population. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-obhLC02pOso/WkavUVsGOPI/AAAAAAAAAtU/QXMKO_a_Mr0lyc_OVZBX47OPQT-vIqiDACLcBGAs/s1600/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="119" data-original-width="77" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-obhLC02pOso/WkavUVsGOPI/AAAAAAAAAtU/QXMKO_a_Mr0lyc_OVZBX47OPQT-vIqiDACLcBGAs/s200/th.jpg" width="129" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The central figure in the novel, Nargis, is a Christian masquerading as a Muslim. Raised in the relative security of the home of her uncle, a Christian bishop, she decides at college to pretend she is a Muslim. It seems much easier than constantly enduring ostracism and persecution because she is Christian. She marries Massud, a Muslim man, without telling him the truth. They both become architects, living a tranquil life until Massud is killed in a shoot-out between a couple of Islamists and an American diplomat/CIA agent. At the same time, she and Massud have been acting as patrons of a young woman named Helen, the daughter of the Christian couple who are their servants. Helen’s father, a rickshaw driver, is in love with a Muslim widow whose husband was killed and son severely injured by an American attack. Without giving away the story, a military official pressures Nargis to forgive the American in return for a million dollars in blood money. Meantime, Helen is endangered as well. They both flee the city with the help of a young Muslim man who is in love with Helen.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Aslam's depiction of his fictional Christians is not an exaggeration, according to an article in Foreign Policy (May 16, 2016) by Usman Ahmad entitled “Is Pakistan Safe for Christians?” <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/16/is-pakistan-safe-for-christians/">http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/16/is-pakistan-safe-for-christians/</a>&nbsp; Ahmad explains that many Christians are converts from lower-caste Hindus and are commonly known as “sweepers” (a low-caste occupation). This term is used in Aslam’s novel. Sometimes Pakistani employers looking for sanitation workers deliberately advertise for non-Muslims; that is, Christians. In recent years there have been several attacks on Christian churches and schools in Pakistan, in part because Christians are identified with the West: that is, with the United States and its campaign of bombing and drone attacks against perceived Islamist militants in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. At Easter 2016 more than 70 Christians were killed by a Taliban bombing in Lahore. Forced marriages and conversions of Christian girls to Muslim men are common, and the girls are afraid to testify in court because they are in the custody of the families that kidnapped them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Blasphemy against Islam is a crime in Pakistan, and Christians have been severely punished for it. Somewhere in the novel a character mentions that it’s easy to accuse a Christian neighbor of blasphemy. The payoff is high; if your neighbor is jailed for blasphemy, you may be able to acquire his house or property. This kind of thing also goes on in Iran, when people denounce members of the Baha’i faith, just as it did in Germany and Eastern Europe under the Nazis, when you could acquire really good houses and apartments by denouncing Jews.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the moment, Christians are under attack in several countries in the Middle East and Asia.&nbsp; Coptic Christians, about 10 per cent of the Egyptian population, have endured several violent attacks on their churches. Coptic Christianity predates Islam; Copts are among the very earliest converts to Christianity. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One can assume that since his father was a communist, secularism was not a dirty word in Nadeem Aslam’s household when he was growing up.&nbsp; Now secularism appears to be something that is considered dangerous even in the West. I have written about this before in an entry to this blog called “I Am an Atheist Blogger” &nbsp;<a href="http://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2015/11/">http://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2015/11/</a>, where I mentioned that many Americans consider atheists to be worse than Muslims. It is important that we should protect everyone who is persecutes for their faith, wherever the country.&nbsp; But we should also be protecting the principle of secularism, the rights of individuals to marry whomever they want regardless of their religion, and the rights of individuals to be non-believers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-90550717583146885712017-10-30T12:27:00.001-07:002017-11-22T09:39:39.478-08:00An Older Woman's Story: My Own Experiences with Sexual Harassment<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;;"><span style="font-size: 26.6667px;">An Older Woman's Story: My Own Experiences with Sexual Harassment</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A few weeks ago the world learned that a famous movie producer, Harvey Weinstein, was a serial sexual harasser who had paid off several women so that they would not reveal his activities in court. Some of the things he did were so disgusting that I won’t repeat them here. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A woman at my gym asked why it had taken so long for his behavior to be revealed.&nbsp; I answered that he was very powerful, so each individual woman would have been afraid that he could sue her for libel or ruin her career. As is usual in these cases, once one woman comes forward, others speak out. It seems several famous actresses such as Angelina Jolie suffered harassing incidents with him. Personally, I was not surprised by this as I’ve long assumed that all powerful men have extra-marital affairs and harass women (or men, depending on sexual preference).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After Weinstein’s behavior was revealed, someone started a #MeToo hashtag, so that women who had experienced harassment could discuss their own experiences. Margaret Wente, a columnist for the Globe and Mail then wrote a piece called “Please Turn down the Volume on the Outrage Machine” (October 21, 2017, p. F7) </span><a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/please-turn-down-the-volume-on-the-outrage-machine/article36675462/"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/please-turn-down-the-volume-on-the-outrage-machine/article36675462/</span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In her column Wente discussed what she called “the standard menu” of what happened to women in their teens and twenties when she was growing up (as I was too ) in the 1960s and 70s. The menu included “sidewalk catcalls, being trailed on the street at night, dates who wouldn’t desist until we got really angry, a few flashers…bosses who tried to kiss us…a handful of overly friendly colleagues, someone’s dad who made a pass when we were underage.”&nbsp; All of these things, Wente noted, had happened to her. She argued that we should not pretend that these everyday incidents were the equivalent of actual rape. A few days later a retired (female) police officer wrote to the editor to point out that every one of the things that had happened to Wente was now illegal.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I thought about this for a while as I reviewed my own past. I also wondered if I should write about this at all on my own human rights blog.&nbsp; Is it too personal, or should an older woman who is a human rights scholar write about this topic?&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I recently read an article by the distinguished geologist and memoirist, Hope Jahrens (<i>Lab Girl, 2016)&nbsp;</i>&nbsp;that convinced me all older women should speak out. Jahrens wrote about how one of her best ever female students was considering leaving science because of sexual harassment by a professor.&nbsp; According to Jahrens, this is one of the major reasons there are so few women in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and medicine) fields: women keep leaving because there is nothing they can do to stop the harassment. If you are working with the single most distinguished professor in your field, and he harasses you, what do you then do?&nbsp; Find another supervisor and lost grant money? Switch universities and lose grant money? Or leave the profession entirely?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nothing really terrible every happened to me. In 41 years as a professor, preceded by 10 as a student, no professor, student or colleague ever sexually harassed me. Perhaps this is because I have a sharp tongue, am relatively self-confident for a woman (by Canadian standards, anyway) or because by the 1980s there were strict controls about harassment in Canadian universities.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I did have a few incidents when I was younger. When I was eleven a man entered the bedroom I was sharing with my sister at a summer cottage, but I woke and called for my father before anything much could happen; my parents called the police. When I was seventeen a man exposed himself in the lobby of a building I was passing: I didn’t call the police, nor did I report it to any older person. When I was eighteen a boss made what we would now call an “inappropriate” remark to me, but I made a caustic reply, and he never bothered me again (though I heard from another girl about something truly appalling he’d said to her.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I was 21 a man lurking in the book stacks of the McGill Library exposed himself to me; a friend and I chased him into the arms of a security guard. That guard called the chief of security, who interviewed the man and then told me that he was a visiting professor from somewhere in Eastern Europe. I agreed not to press charges if he would visit a psychiatrist, as I was concerned about what would happen to him if I did and then he had to go home to a Communist country. You might think in retrospect that I should have pressed charges, but I could not take that responsibility and I am still glad I did not.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">Once when I was a young professor, I attended a party for a distinguished visitor given by one of my husband's colleagues.&nbsp; The&nbsp;visitor, who was drunk, grabbed me in a way that even then would have been considered&nbsp;assault.&nbsp; I didn't say anything because I didn't want my husband to attack him, I didn't want to spoil the party, and I figured no one but my husband (whom I told later) would believe&nbsp;me anyway.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In my first year as a professor (1975-76) I had a colleague who kept a large semi-pornographic poster of a nude woman in his office. It bothered me, and I assume it bothered his students.&nbsp; In 1991, I had a meeting with a Dean (now deceased) in his office: he had a framed poster on his wall of a nude woman tied to a chair with a bag over her head, implying she was about to be tortured. I didn’t say anything in either of these two cases, in the latter because I was afraid the Dean would take revenge on me in some way if I said anything. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So that’s my #MeToo story. Nothing too dramatic, nothing seriously dangerous, nothing warranting the label “victim,” though some these of incidents were illegal and others would be considered inappropriate in a university setting now. It was, as Wente said, a normal part of being female at the time. But it’s a good thing it isn’t considered a normal part of being female any more.&nbsp; And it is a human rights matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-37565869228424838732017-08-16T11:31:00.001-07:002017-08-16T11:31:07.475-07:00Nazism Then and Now<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt;">Nazism Then and Now</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Back in Germany in the 1930s, my father had a second cousin who drove a taxi. He was a Jew and a Communist. One day some Nazi cab drivers beat him to death. No one did anything about it: it was OK to murder Communist Jews in those days.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--74A79vD6g4/WZSPOOdhZ3I/AAAAAAAAAtA/b8IGiwe5djs_nK9STNWHYgLux3ftptMKACLcBGAs/s1600/nazi-sa-brownshirts-march-through-the-brandenburg-gate-in-berlin-germany-DYEX66.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1053" data-original-width="1300" height="323" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--74A79vD6g4/WZSPOOdhZ3I/AAAAAAAAAtA/b8IGiwe5djs_nK9STNWHYgLux3ftptMKACLcBGAs/s400/nazi-sa-brownshirts-march-through-the-brandenburg-gate-in-berlin-germany-DYEX66.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nazi Brownshirts at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin</td></tr></tbody></table><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">I remembered this story while thinking about the events in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend (August 13, 2017), where there was a legal demonstration by American Nazis and their sympathizers. The demonstration was ostensibly to protest a decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, the Southern slaveholder and rebel who led the Confederate Troops against the legitimate government of the United States in the American Civil War of 1861-65. There was also a counter-demonstration. One of the Nazis drove a car into the crowd of counter-demonstrators and killed Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old woman. Nineteen other people were wounded, including one young man severely beaten around the head. On August 13 it was reported that five people were in critical condition in hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">But you might say there’s no equivalence between Nazism in Germany in the 1930s and Nazism in the US now. There’s still a free press and free speech in the US, and many people denounced the white supremacist and anti-Semitic marchers. The man who drove the car was arrested (though I’m not sure about the people who beat up and injured the other 19 people). Even President Donald Trump (sort-of) denounced the Nazis, though he claimed there were good people on both sides. That’s hard to believe if you watched (admittedly liberal, anti-racist) CNN, and saw footage of protesters shouting “blood and soil” (a slogan from 1930s Nazism) and “Jews will not replace us!” (I’m not sure what the latter slogan meant). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">But there is a kind of equivalence between German and American Nazism. With all the other stuff going on, we forget that the unarmed counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville were extremely brave people. They faced a group of heavily armed men carrying assault rifles; Virginia is an “open-carry” state, where citizens can legally carry weapons. According to an African-American pastor whom I saw last night on CNN, they also carried improvised weapons such as bottles filled with urine and cans with concrete. So as shocking as events in Virginia were, we should be grateful that nothing worse happened. One or more of the Nazi terrorists could easily have started firing and killed scores of people.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">The US has two sets of laws that would be inconceivable in any other Western democratic state. The first is gun laws that permit practically anyone to buy outrageously dangerous weapons. The second is unrestrained freedom of speech laws. In Canada, if people shouted racist and anti-Semitic slogans at a demonstration, they could be charged under hate-speech laws. Laws prohibiting late speech are also permitted by the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a Convention that the US originally opposed because it would have prohibited some of its racial segregation laws. I am a strong supporter of freedom of speech, but I also support hate-speech laws. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some of the white supremacists wore white robes reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan. Others wore military-style clothing. All of this was legal. To me, this looked like armed private militias, which are against the law in most countries. That the US tolerates such armed militias suggests a further resemblance to Nazi Germany. Hitler’s militias started making trouble in the 1920s, and by the 1930s many people tolerated them.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am not suggesting that the US is likely to become a Nazi state. I am suggesting that the new, proud and public Nazism we saw last week reflects a President and Administration who—if they are not white supremacists themselves—certainly seem to sympathize with those who are. The President denounced white supremacists and the KKK in what appeared to be a scripted speech on August 14, but then reneged on his denunciation the next day.&nbsp; Probably his Jewish daughter and son-in-law had pressured him to say something he didn’t really believe.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">When he reneged on his condemnation, Trump asked, “who’s next?”&nbsp; If we remove statues of Robert E. Lee, he asked, will people soon want to remove statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, early US Presidents who were also slave owners?&nbsp; Perhaps that’s a good idea. Alternately, all statues of former slave-owners, or buildings built by slaves, or universities funded by slave-owners, should have plaques placed on them, explaining their relationship to slavery. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am not one of those Canadians who goes around flaunting moral superiority to Americans. To the contrary, I support all those American liberals who find themselves having to defend freedom of the press, racial equality and other liberal values against the extremist and possibly Nazi-sympathizing individuals who currently inhabit the White House. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Even worse are those Republicans who don’t hold white supremacist or anti-Semitic views, but who support Trump because he promises to lower their taxes. Just as in Germany, it’s not only the disenfranchised working class that supports Nazis. Many of Hitler’s supporters were rich, upper-class people who wanted to protect their property and privilege against the Communist threat. There’s no such threat in the US, but there are still a lot of rich people who want to become even wealthier than they already are. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">This shameful behavior by Republicans is even more a threat to American democracy that the horrible Nazis who demonstrated in Charlottesville last weekend.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-80761648722898175652017-07-10T14:38:00.001-07:002017-07-11T07:11:57.855-07:00Cultural Appropriation vs. Cultural Exploration<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt;">Cultural Appropriation vs. Cultural Exploration<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sLjOZW_uNIw/WWPyErd33sI/AAAAAAAAAsw/nNGOZLOhfgsCrA5GvFW3rQRqcODG0la3QCEwYBhgL/s1600/51t%252BqWxNwPL._AC_US218_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="218" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sLjOZW_uNIw/WWPyErd33sI/AAAAAAAAAsw/nNGOZLOhfgsCrA5GvFW3rQRqcODG0la3QCEwYBhgL/s1600/51t%252BqWxNwPL._AC_US218_.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Recently (June 2017) I read <i>The Autograph Man</i>, a 2002 novel by Zadie Smith. She is the daughter of a Caribbean mother and an English father, who often writes about “multicultural” issues of various kinds. The protagonist of <i>The Autograph Man</i>is Jewish, son of a non-Jewish Chinese father and a Jewish mother (presumably of European descent).&nbsp; His friends are an African-American Jew and two “white” Jews.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">The novel is full of rather learned, if not arcane, references to things Jewish, especially the Talmud and the Kabbalah, so much so that I wondered if Smith were Jewish. Apparently she is not, and apparently there was a debate at its time of publication about whether <i>The Autograph Man </i>was a case of cultural appropriation. Perhaps only Jews should be permitted to write funny novels about Jews, incorporating religious references along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">About the same time as I reads Zadie Smith’s book, I read Alexander McCall Smith’s <i>The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, </i>one of his series of novels about Precious Ramotswe, the founder of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. McCall Smith is a white man, an eminent professor of medical law, born in 1948 in what is now Zimbabwe. Precious Ramotswe is a much beloved fictional character, a “traditionally built” middle-aged African lady of tremendous human warmth, perspicacity and kindness. I wondered if anyone had ever accused McCall Smith of cultural appropriation, or whether, perhaps, at least some Botswanans are pleased that so many people are reading about their peaceful, well-governed country, sadly still a rarity in Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">While reading these novels I thought about a quite acrimonious debate that’s been occurring in Canada lately, about whether white (or indeed non-white) “settler” Canadians should “appropriate” the culture of indigenous Canadians. In this debate, anyone who is not indigenous is a settler who has participated in the theft of indigenous lands, regardless of how recently he or she may have come to Canada. The question is whether people who are not indigenous, or who have only partial and remote indigenous ancestry, should write novels about indigenous people.&nbsp; One of the people caught up in this debate is the novelist Joseph Boyden, who has been accused of mis-representing himself as indigenous while writing novels about indigenous Canadians.&nbsp; Apparently he is of mixed ancestry, and was interested in exploring that part of his ancestry that was indigenous.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Several Canadians of European ancestry have been caught up in this, according to various newspaper reports I’ve read. An artist named Amanda PL (yes, that’s correct) was going to exhibit at Visions Gallery in Toronto, but then people started noticing her paintings’ strong resemblance to those of Norval Morrisseau, an indigenous artist. Perhaps she thought her paintings were an homage to Morrisseau, or perhaps she was merely exploring indigenous art, but she was accused of cultural appropriation. The gallery cancelled her exhibit. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hal Niedzviecki was the editor of a small literary magazine called <i>Write</i>, a quarterly published by the Writers’ Union of Canada<i>. </i>He edited a special issue of works by indigenous writers, but in the same issue he wrote an editorial defending non-indigenous writers’ right to engage in “cultural appropriation” by writing about indigenous characters. In fact, he even went so far as to propose, presumably tongue-in-cheek, an “appropriation prize.” Several non-indigenous Canadians tweeted their support for the prize (undoubtedly a stupid thing to do: irony does not play out well on Twitter). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then Jonathan Kay, Editor of <i>The Walrus </i>magazine, Canada’s answer to <i>The Atlantic </i>or <i>The New Yorker, </i>resigned, apparently in response to social media criticism. Kay’s sin was to write an article in <i>The National Post</i>, a conservative Canadian newspaper, defending the&nbsp;right to debate the question of cultural appropriation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">One question I asked myself when reading accounts of these debates was whether the resignations constituted censorship. Many literary magazines in Canada receive subsidies from various levels of government, as does <i>The Walrus, </i>and I wondered whether governments had some responsibility to protect the freedom of speech of editors and contributors. Probably they did not, as long as Niedzviecki and Kay resigned voluntarily.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other hand, I worry about the arts and academic atmosphere in Canada. I suspect that some individuals who adjudicate grant applications believe that you should not write about cultures other than your own. Some people also think that you shouldn’t be involved in indigenous affairs if you are not indigenous yourself, even if you are trying to help them, as a couple of my white students and colleagues have discovered over the years. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">So where does this leave me on the debate about cultural appropriation? I enjoyed both <i>The Autograph Man</i> and <i>The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon. </i>I think Zadie Smith had every right to explore Jewish liturgy and lore and create funny Jewish characters, whether or not she is Jewish. I also think Alexander McCall Smith should continue writing his books about Botswana.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">And I think Canadians of all ancestries should be permitted to explore indigenous history and culture. Some may do so in ways that are insensitive or offensive and if so, their critics will have every right to say so. Similarly, if artwork is bad or derivative, critics can say so. But other writers and artists may be able to imagine the lives of indigenous people in ways that are sensitive, enlightened, and even contribute to the remediation of the grievous ills that indigenous people in Canada have suffered over the centuries. This is cultural exploration, a common way for writers and artists to explore—often with sympathy and grace—the lives of people unlike themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was foolish at best, disrespectful at worst, to propose a cultural appropriation prize. A little civility goes a long way. On the other hand, I have very little respect for those who countenance censorship by social media. Freedom of speech and expression are important human rights, and they are so with good reason. No one should be allowed to stop anyone from expressing himself solely on account of his real or presumed racial, ethnic, or any other identity.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-23947723053258984242017-06-19T09:45:00.002-07:002017-06-19T09:47:10.534-07:00Human Rights in Africa: Guest Blog by Chidi Odinkalu<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-line-height-alt: 18.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20pt;">Three Decades On, the Protection of Human Rights in Africa Comes of Age?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">(Note: Chidi Odinkalu is a distinguished Nigerian human rights scholar and activist.&nbsp; He originally posted this blog on the site of the Africa program of the London School of Economics, where at the time of posting he was Senior Visiting Fellow at LSE’s Centre for the Study of Human Rights. You can read more about Chidi here: <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/chidi-odinkalu">https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/chidi-odinkalu</a>&nbsp;I am re-posting this article on my blog with Chidi’s permission. I have added my own set of pictures)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WT_EDdyP3_A/WUf_Jn6zkJI/AAAAAAAAAsc/ZY8DsCPdHaQrUu4Bb00bSnewdn-pi4gBQCLcBGAs/s1600/th%2B%25281%2529%2B-%2BCopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="167" data-original-width="222" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WT_EDdyP3_A/WUf_Jn6zkJI/AAAAAAAAAsc/ZY8DsCPdHaQrUu4Bb00bSnewdn-pi4gBQCLcBGAs/s320/th%2B%25281%2529%2B-%2BCopy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chidi Odinkalu</td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">When the <a href="http://www.achpr.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d11414; text-decoration-line: none;">African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights</span></a> convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 2 November 1987, as the continent’s pioneer regional human rights oversight institution, few thought of it as anything other than a plaything of the continent’s big men.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The pioneer Chair of the Commission was the personal lawyer to Gabon’s long-serving President, Omar Bongo. His Vice was a senior Egyptian Ambassador. The rest of the Commission was made of the Interior Ministers to Congo’s President Sassou Nguesso and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Mali’s Foreign Minister; three very senior judges from Botswana, Senegal and Tanzania respectively, a law professor from Nigeria and two other lawyers from Uganda and Zambia. The only woman was Mrs Esther Tchouta-Moussa, the pioneer Secretary of the Commission borrowed from the Secretariat of the AU’s predecessor, Organisation of African Unity (OAU), where she worked as Legal Adviser.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Many people justifiably doubted whether this body could confront or address the challenge of protecting human rights on the continent. While most members among the initial composition of the Commission did not necessarily bring personal credibility and expertise to the question of human rights, they enjoyed access to rulers around the continent, an invaluable position for laying the foundation for regional human rights institutions in Africa.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iZ05WUDgfhs/WUf_YVbG_GI/AAAAAAAAAsg/k0fnNJfWI_4Iwj0KRkuyD-BNI-c3pY1tQCLcBGAs/s1600/Ahuman_rights_in_africa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="414" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iZ05WUDgfhs/WUf_YVbG_GI/AAAAAAAAAsg/k0fnNJfWI_4Iwj0KRkuyD-BNI-c3pY1tQCLcBGAs/s320/Ahuman_rights_in_africa.jpg" width="299" /></a></div><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Recognising the political context in which they operated, the Commissioners agreed to a goal of building a regional system that would “stand on a solid foundation” and for this purpose to “make slow but sure lasting progress.” With its Secretariat in makeshift headquarters in Banjul, The Gambia, and a Secretary borrowed from the OAU, the Commission took its first tentative steps towards fulfilling an ambitious mandate.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">No Longer a Toothless Caricature</span></b><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Three decades on, this modest beginning has spawned a regional human rights system for Africa that now comprises a very complex network of norms, institutions and procedures. It is hardly recognisable from its earliest incarnation. The Commission’s membership now has a majority of women and all of its recent Chairpersons in the past decade (including the incumbent) have all been female.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since the Commission was established, the continent has adopted regional treaties on the rights and welfare of children, on the human rights of women and on internal displacement. Seven years after they came into existence, the African Commission persuaded the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to authorise negotiations for an <a href="http://en.african-court.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d11414; text-decoration-line: none;">African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights</span></a>. In 2016, the Court, with its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania, marked ten years of its existence.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The family of murdered journalist Norbert Zongo benefited from an African Court ruling that found that the previous government may have been complicit in his killing and in failing to find out who killed him.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">This difficult history will be lost on many who reflect on the protection of human rights in Africa today. Around the continent now, the reality of institutions that receive complaints from citizens and can decide against powerful governments in cases of human rights violations is taken for granted. The African Commission itself has received over 600 of such petitions since it began and had decided nearly 450 by the end of 2016.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Countries that used to be reluctant to obey decisions of these bodies now do so. For instance, when the Commission found that Cameroon had violated human rights in unlawfully firing Judge Abdoulaye Mazou, the government reinstated him and paid compensation. Botswana reinstated the citizenship of opposition politician, John Modise and his children, after it had unlawfully rendered them stateless. The Commission saved the life of Nigerian General and diplomat Zamani Lekwot, sentenced to death by a military tribunal without a right of appeal. Burkina Faso has paid compensation to the family of slain journalist, <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/killing-norbert-zongo-african-court-stresses-state-obligation-protect-journalists" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d11414; text-decoration-line: none;">Norbert Zongo</span></a>, after the African Court found that the previous government may have been complicit in his killing and in failing to find out who killed him. The Commission now also has several special procedures patented for diverse human rights issues, including extra-judicial killings and human rights of women. It has issued standards and guidelines on various issues from free expression to counter-terrorism. Its Model Law on Access to Information in Africa has inspired the adoption of about 15 new national level laws on the same subject across the continent.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The record of the African Commission has made the continent’s leaders somewhat more accepting of regional supervision of human rights in Africa. Therefore, in the period since the Commission was established, the African Union has made human rights a fundamental principle for regional inter-governmental relations in Africa. Several of the continent’s economic integration bodies, including those in west, east and central Africa, have also established regional courts of justice, nearly all of them with jurisdiction over human rights. This could hardly have been foreseen when the African Commission first convened in 1987.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A Mixed Record and an Unfinished Agenda</span></b><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Notwithstanding this evidence of progress, the record of Africa’s regional human rights courts and tribunals remains mixed. Despite some progress, they have been unable to prevent mass atrocities on the continent or to ensure firm accountability for them. The African Commission’s mission to Sudan in 2004, helped make the case for the international commission of inquiry that ultimately recommended the referral of situation in Darfur, Sudan, to the International Criminal Court. The Rwanda genocide must rank as one of the Commission’s greatest failures. Furthermore, other situations of grave violations of human rights, including Burundi and Central African Republic, have festered without effective regional response.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, there is still a lot of room to reimagine Africa’s regional human rights system. Poor funding suggests a lack of commitment from the governments that should support it the most. The fact that Africans still cannot enjoy effective protection around their continent implies an unwholesome separation of economic from political rights. As Rwanda President Paul Kagame recently recommended in his <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2017/05/03/reforming-the-african-union-the-vital-challenge-of-implementation/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #d11414; text-decoration-line: none;">review</span></a> of the institutions and organs of the African Union (AU), there must be room to re-examine the multiplicity of overlapping regional courts and tribunals in order to save costs, reduce confusion and improve efficiency.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Above all, the persistence of mass atrocities challenges the aptitude of the continent’s institutions and the commitment of its governments. It is also the ultimate major test of the efficacy of Africa’s regional courts and tribunals. The continent cannot continue to outsource accountability to the rest of the world but the rest of the world cannot also continue to infantilise Africa or perpetuate the notion that the only place in which Africans who violate their own people can be effectively held to account is outside the continent. The recent conviction of Chad’s former President, Hissene Habre, by an AU-supported court in Senegal is evidence that it is possible to address high-level accountability for mass atrocities in Africa. This is why the proposal for an international crimes complement to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights should not be dismissed lightly.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Those 11 men and one woman who met in Addis-Ababa on 2 November 1987 at the First Ordinary Session of the African Commission may not have reflected anyone’s idea of traditional champions of human rights. Few of that pioneering set of commissioners would be eligible for election to the Commission today. That demonstrates how far the system has come. But they were also true to their word as the progress has been “slow but sure”. Whatever their flaws, the foundation of Africa’s regional system has been “solid”, if unspectacular. All this suggests that they were canny and, in their own way, committed to a better continent.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-28473099674948129832017-05-11T11:55:00.000-07:002017-05-11T11:55:05.146-07:00Street without a Name by Kapka Kassabova; Book Note<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">Street without a Name by Kapka Kassabova: Book Note<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">In 1990 I visited what was then still the Soviet Union, as part of an exchange of American with Soviet human rights scholars (I am not American, but the delegation needed a woman, which I am). While there a Russian member of Amnesty International invited us to her apartment. This was a very big deal, as only a short time previously this woman would have been arrested for being in AI, let alone inviting us to her apartment.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">The apartment was in a very ugly block of high-rises in a suburb of Moscow. I noticed long, uncut grass around the blocks, providing a nice refuge for rats. Also there were no street names.&nbsp; Our hostess explained that the authorities thought if there were street names, the CIA would be able to use them for its nefarious purposes. But you could find where you were going as the authorities had recently decided to paint different-colored decorations on the different blocks, so you could tell your visitors, for example, to visit the blue block.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">I thought of this when I recently (April 2017) read Kapka Kassabova’s <i>Street without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria </i>(Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2009). Kassabova was born in 1973 and lived in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, until 1990, when her parents emigrated with her and her sister to New Zealand. The first half of the book recounts her childhood, and the second half her visits back to Bulgaria in the early 2000s.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YDylFkiGz5o/WRSzK7vqSiI/AAAAAAAAAsE/jtzHpa_pVRcNodcQnU3M8Q7EBa92jUPaACLcB/s1600/kapka1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YDylFkiGz5o/WRSzK7vqSiI/AAAAAAAAAsE/jtzHpa_pVRcNodcQnU3M8Q7EBa92jUPaACLcB/s320/kapka1.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kapka Kassabova</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like my Soviet host, Kassabova lived on a street without a name. Her parents, a professional couple, were interested in literature, arts, politics—all the usual “bourgeois” preoccupations of European intelligentsia—but knew better than to speak their minds about the Bulgarian dictatorship. In extremely cramped quarters, with neighbours who could hear everything and who might very well be spies, it was best to keep one’s own counsel. The price for minimal material security was political silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">The poverty is pervasive and all-consuming. Kassabova’s father spends six months at a university in the Netherlands on an exchange program. Later, some Dutch colleagues come to visit. They comment that the the shops display many goods, and the Kassabova family does not explain that these are for display only: to get any of those goods requires connections and long wait times. At one point they all visit a rural village, and the Dutch colleagues suggest having a barbeque. Knowing that meat is very expensive for Bulgarians, they suggest that Kassabova’s parents bring potatoes. There is a mad scramble for the potatoes, eventually supplied by the hosts at the cottage where they are staying, as the family doesn’t want to admit to the Dutch people that even potatoes are scarce. The Dutch visitors, meanwhile, have given up on their idea of camping in Bulgaria after they discover how filthy the campground toilets are.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Kassabova glosses over some significant incidents in her life. In 1986 she was hospitalized for some time after contracting a “mysterious” immunodeficiency disease. This was, not coincidentally, just after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine. When she returned home in the early 2000s, she learned than several people she’d known as a child, including fellow schoolchildren, had died of cancer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2pKn_SyI-g0/WRSzVuWCK7I/AAAAAAAAAsI/OC0rDkegCJssGPeg8QXFb44z7qMRsvoZgCLcB/s1600/3808716%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2pKn_SyI-g0/WRSzVuWCK7I/AAAAAAAAAsI/OC0rDkegCJssGPeg8QXFb44z7qMRsvoZgCLcB/s1600/3808716%25281%2529.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Kassabova also discusses a little-noticed incident in Bulgaria’s history, shortly before the fall of communism in 1989. This was the de facto expulsion of about 300,000 ethnic Turks from Bulgaria in the 1980s. As Kassabova says (p. 114) “The ethnic Turks were the tobacco-growers, the agricultural workers, the humble workforce that buzzed away in the background, propping up the diseased body of the State.” In principle, there was no need to go into exile: the government was demanding that all ethnic Turks change their names to Bulgarian ones: you couldn’t register your baby at birth, for example, if you hadn’t changed your name. But those who didn’t want to do so fled to Turkey. This expulsion was a precursor of the ethnic wars in former-Yugoslavia, which started only a few years later. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">On one of her trips home Kassabova meets a woman on a train who tells her that she was one of the 1,643 infant and child prisoners in Bulgaria’s communist prison camps. According to her account (pp. 315-17) when her mother was being sent to the camp a guard grabbed her baby and dumped her into a pail of dirty water, since children would not be able to survive in the camps. Another guard fished her out and gave her back to her mother. This woman was trying to obtain compensation, so far unsuccessfully. She described the camp to Kassabova as equivalent to Nazi concentration camps for Jews, which I have no difficulty believing, although Communist camps were not overtly exterminationist. But then she told Kassabova that this was only for comparative purposes, as the Jews hadn’t really been exterminated and the Holocaust was a Zionist conspiracy. It’s a shame she knew so little about Bulgaria’s own history, as it was one of the few countries in Europe that refused to deport Jews during WWII.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">I didn’t know anything about Bulgaria before I read this book, and I am terrible at geography, so I sat with an old hard-copy atlas beside me (National Geographic 1975!) while I read this memoir. Bulgaria is in South-east Europe, very close to Turkey: it has an extremely long history and in earlier times profited from the confluence of civilizations, Muslims mixing with Sephardic Jews and Armenians as well as with ethnic Bulgarians and Gypsies (as Kassabova refers to them).&nbsp; Now it’s Bulgarians and Gypsies, the latter far worse off than the former. It’s a shame that in this otherwise engrossing and intelligent book, Kassabova seems rather insensitive to the plight of Bulgarian Roma. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-57438023083293136612017-04-14T13:42:00.001-07:002017-04-14T13:42:20.741-07:00Human Rights or Global Capitalism by Manfred Nowak: Book Note<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Human Rights or Global Capitalism: The Limits of Privatization</span></i><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">, by Manfred Nowak: Book Review (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">\Note: I am posting this review with the permission of Bert Lockwood, editor of <i>Human Rights Quarterly</i>, in which this review will be published.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Shortly before I read Manfred Nowak’s important new book on privatization, I came across an article in the business section of Toronto’s <i>Globe and Mail </i>discussing a promising new investment opportunity. The author alerted his readers to the anticipated increase in the number of for-profit prisons in the US as a result of President Trump’s announced policies to get tough on crime and immigration, and suggested that readers could invest in the companies running those prisons. Manfred Nowak has collected much evidence that privatization of essential social services undermines all human rights, civil and political as well as economic and social. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R6HcMS0hQKI/WPEyuGet8kI/AAAAAAAAArw/bdu_GuR0xBMQ9Oa4BYgFJqcsDBFOXvKuQCLcB/s1600/download%2B%25287%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R6HcMS0hQKI/WPEyuGet8kI/AAAAAAAAArw/bdu_GuR0xBMQ9Oa4BYgFJqcsDBFOXvKuQCLcB/s200/download%2B%25287%2529.jpg" width="132" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nowak’s principal argument is that international human rights law cannot be neutral regarding whether services essential to the fulfillment of human rights may be privatized. Such a position, he argues, abnegates responsibility to assess the actual consequences of privatization. International law requires progressive implementation of economic, social and cultural rights to the maximum of a country’s available resources.&nbsp;Thus, Nowak argues, it also prohibits introduction of “deliberate retrogressive measures.” (p. 42). He also argues that the requirement of progressive implementation applies to civil and political rights as well as to economic, social and cultural, although it is unclear whether this is the consensus among international human rights lawyers. Thus, Nowak argues, a thorough human rights impact assessment is required before any privatization program is undertaken, and private providers must be held accountable to the same high human rights standards as States. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">In assessing the consequences of privatization, Nowak suggests as a baseline measure the status quo at the time each State ratified the various relevant legal instruments, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This appears to be a good principle, but it does assume that what States reported to be the provision of services and protection of human rights at the time of ratification actually was the case. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bs6R2FlBUdY/WPEy0kjHlrI/AAAAAAAAAr0/9O382y6H9xg5Qv1ePQfoFIe2wHrL6qYeQCLcB/s1600/download%2B%25288%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bs6R2FlBUdY/WPEy0kjHlrI/AAAAAAAAAr0/9O382y6H9xg5Qv1ePQfoFIe2wHrL6qYeQCLcB/s320/download%2B%25288%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Manfred Nowak</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">In chapters 3-6, Nowak provides much evidence that privatization of education, health, social services and water has resulted in poorer services overall. But he does not compare the results of these policies with the reality on the ground before they were implemented. He assumes that all privatization –especially that connected with the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) instituted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank —leaves people worse off. This is not necessarily the case. It may appear, for example, that resort to private schools in sub-Saharan Africa is a regressive measure, compared to earlier guarantees of free government-provided primary schooling. But the reality in many government-supported public schools, both before and after SAPs, was that classrooms were overcrowded, supplies non-existent, and many teachers unqualified or underpaid, if indeed not paid at all. In one study of public schools (described in the Economist, January 28, 2017) in seven African countries, children received less than two and a half hours of teaching per day, although there was no evidence that private schools were any better.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like the educational systems, so also government-provided health services may have been more fictitious than real. Hospitals were often undersupplied; patients and their families had to buy their own bandages, drugs, and food; and they routinely had to bribe doctors in order to obtain treatment. It is, indeed, appalling that SAPs required governments to reduce spending on already inadequate health and education services, but we should not be misled into assuming that these services were either universally available or accessible to all on an equal basis. Nor were they ever free: they were supposed to be tax-supported, but countries with very low tax bases, either because of administrative inefficiencies, tax-payer resistance, corruption, or a combination of all three, routinely do not provide these services. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other hand, according to Morton Jerven in his Africa: Why Economists get it Wrong (Zed Press, 2015) statistical data suggesting improvements in economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s and 90s after SAPs were introduced may also be an artifact of mis-reporting rather than a reflection of the reality on the ground. SAP-induced cutbacks applied to statistical offices as well as to other state institutions, reducing their capacities for accurate reporting compared to late colonial and early- post-colonial times. Thus, the economic growth that various international institutions claim occurred after SAPs were imposed may be more an artifice of guesswork and estimates than of actual data.&nbsp;If this is so, then supposedly positive effects of privatization on economic growth may be more mythical than real, as may be privatization’s supposedly positive effects on States’ capacities to fulfill economic human rights.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">While Nowak’s comments on the detrimental effects of SAPs may be sound, he exaggerates the detrimental consequences of globalization. He maintains in his introduction that “globalization driven by neoliberal market forces” has resulted in “growing inequality, poverty, and global economic, food, financial, social, and ecological crises.” (p. 1) The type of inequality—whether within states or between states, among individuals only within one state or among individuals world-wide, depends heavily on public policies.&nbsp;Moreover, there is absolutely no evidence that poverty as a whole has increased: rather, there is substantial evidence that the current era of globalization coincides with decreased poverty. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A 2017 World Bank study estimated that from 1993 to 2013, the number of the world’s poor fell by about 1 billion, from one-third to one-tenth of the world’s population. According to Branko Milanovic in his book, Global Inequality, (Harvard, 2016), the “big winners” in this reduction of poverty were the new Asian middle class, while the big losers were the Western working class. The biggest winners of all were the global plutocrats, or multi-billionaires.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This extreme inequality does indeed point to the danger to human rights of unregulated profit-seeking global capitalism. But it does not mean that globalization has caused increased poverty, as Nowak himself later concedes, saying “I am fully aware that neoliberal economic policies in times of globalization have led to rapid economic growth, which…has enabled millions of human beings to lift themselves out of poverty…” (p. 3). This shows the misleading nature of the book’s title, <i>Human Rights or Global Capitalism. </i>There is no known economic system other than market economies that coincides with the institution of rights-protective societies. Capitalism appears to be a necessary, although hardly sufficient, condition for human rights. In this respect, Nowak’s reference to property rights as “bourgeois” is also misleading. Although he is correct that the history of the right to own property is rooted in the struggle of the bourgeoisie against the monarchs and nobles of early modern Europe, that right is now essential to peasants, indigenous peoples, urban slum dwellers, and women worldwide, precisely to protect themselves against global capitalism and expropriation of the resources that they own and use.<a href="file:///C:/Users/RHODA%20HASSMANN/Documents/blog/nowak%20review%20april%2014%202017.docx#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The book’s sub-title, <i>The Limits of Privatization,</i> clarifies this. The question is not whether capitalist market economies spread worldwide; it is if and how governments regulate them, and whether governments are willing to turn over the fulfilment of economic human rights to private, profit-making enterprises. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">When Nowak addresses actual privatization policies, he is on much solider ground that when he condemns globalization outright. Addressing education, for example, he shows that the introduction of vouchers that parents can use to send children to any school they wish, either public or private, has actually resulted in increased inequality of educational opportunity, an impermissible regressive measure. This makes for sad reading, considering the recent appointment of Betsy DeVos, an advocate of school vouchers, as Secretary of Education in the US. Regarding the right to health, Nowak again provides evidence from selected cases that privatization is often regressive. On the other hand, he does not consider the problems of entirely tax-funded health systems that experience shortages of doctors, hospitals beds, and operating time in part because of government decisions to reduce access to save money, as in Canada. This is becoming a severe problem as the population ages. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">In his chapter on the right to water, Nowak describes the well-known protests in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, against water privatization. But he does not assess whether as a result of the government’s decision to abrogate its treaty with the US water multinational, Bechtel, Bolivians now enjoy better access to clean water. Water is not a free good, nor, as Nowak contends, are “simple tools” (p. 99) such as wells always enough to access it. In some parts of the world, water-borne disease is rampant. I agree that governments are responsible to provide water and sanitation, and should supervise any private enterprises involved in that provision. But there may be times when municipal bureaucrats are incompetent or corrupt, and private providers are more efficient. As Nowak acknowledges, between 1990 and 2012 2.3 billion more people worldwide obtained access to clean water, in large part because of the “construction of water pipelines by private companies.” (p. 116). The trick is to provide efficient, knowledgeable, and incorruptible oversight by public officials of private companies, not to object to privatization per se.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Concentrating so much on international law, Nowak does not consider the realities of budget and other types of constraints in even the most rights-protective Western countries in the 21<sup>st</sup>century. He notes favorably that current social policies encourage transfer of incomes from the young to the old, without considering demographic changes that have severely increased the burden on the young of providing pensions for an expanding older generation. Nowak avoids these questions by noting that his book is only about “the permissibility of privatization under international human rights law,” and is “not primarily concerned about the consequences of privatization.”(p. 2)&nbsp; But if we are concerned with the fulfilment of human rights, then we should be concerned with privatization’s consequences and how they compare to the reality—not merely the legal myth—of state-supplied services in both poor and rich countries. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">One of Nowak’s strongest chapters discusses privatization of personal security by the “global prison industrial complex” (p. 121), although this complex is mostly confined to the US and UK. It is outrageous that any government, anywhere, would entrust the administration of prisons to profit-making entitles. As Nowak states, “the very idea of delegating the custody of prisoners to for-profit companies and thereby treating prisoners as a commodity violates their human rights to personal liberty and dignity.” (p.173) Deprivation of personal liberty should only occur under the most drastic of circumstances, after a fair trial and other guarantees of the rule of law. Moreover, under international law prisons are supposed to engage in rehabilitative measures; instead, for-profit prisons cut costs as much as they can. At the same time, they encourage policies that incarcerate more and more people, since higher rates of incarceration mean higher profits.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">In another very strong chapter, Nowak discusses privatized services that often undermine the most basic human right to personal security. He argues that some states, especially the US and UK, deliberately use privatized security forces to commit such acts as torture that violate international humanitarian and human rights law. Just as running prisons is a core function of the state, Nowak argues, so also “internal and external security belong to the core functions of the modern constitutional state,” (p. 159) and ought not in any circumstances to be contracted out to private for-profit firms.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">&nbsp;One final critical point. Nowak introduces his argument by contrasting the “Western” with the “socialist” perspectives on human rights. It is illogical to contrast a geographical region with a philosophical position. He should either contrast the “Western” with the “non-Western” or “Southern” position on human rights, or he should contrast liberalism with socialism. In fact, Nowak begins his section on the socialist position by referring to the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two people from Germany who spent much of their professional lives in England, surely a quintessential Western country. More than that, one of Nowak’s central arguments is that socialism is indeed a Western philosophical position. He provides very interesting information on how welfare states emerged in Western Europe, and he shows how two Westerners, the Canadian John Humphrey and the Frenchman René Cassin, were instrumental in including economic human rights in the Universal Declaration. His chapter on social security begins with a discussion of how Western countries introduced these “socialist” policies. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">This criticism is not merely a matter of semantics. As long as the myth that civil and political human rights are “Western” and that Westerners are not concerned with “socialist” economic and social human rights persists, then civil and political human rights are an easy target for ideologues and repressive political leaders, as in China. At the same time, the myth does a disservice to non-Westerners who not only accept, but often risk their lives to protect, civil and political rights. Scholars of human rights should combat this myth, not support it by use of inaccurate terminology. Nowak’s discussions of welfare states clarifies that&nbsp; the libertarian position opposed to collective social and state responsibility for economic and social human rights currently dominating the US is not the common “Western” one. To the contrary, the “Western” position on human rights has included economic and social rights for over 150 years. Western states have provided the relevant social services in large part because citizens have exercised their civil and political rights to force them to do so. Without civil and political rights, constitutions such as that of the Soviet Union, which Nowak cites as an example of protection of economic and social rights, are worse than a farce. They are a cynical attempt to cover up massive denials of the right to work or the right to equal access to health care and education, as opposed to superior education and health care for the privileged Party elite and their families.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Despite these critical comments, I recommend this book highly. Nowak has pulled together much information about the dangers that privatization poses to human rights, and made persuasive legal arguments for prohibition of retrogression and the imperative of human rights impact assessments before any privatization policy is instituted.&nbsp; One can disagree with some of his summary comments and terminology, yet still learn much from this volume.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="EndNoteBibliography" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -.5in;"><br /></div><br /><div><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" /> <div id="edn1"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><br /></div></div><div id="edn7"> </div></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-87474476723972812462017-03-14T08:36:00.002-07:002017-04-11T14:11:06.791-07:00City of Thorns by Ben Rawlence: Book Note<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt;">City Of Thorns by Ben Rawlence: Book Note</span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MH3nUvc1Zug/WMgNAWQ90cI/AAAAAAAAArQ/cfq3r6hISZ8nRIdcMTVmk07jfvcMIPhRwCLcB/s1600/download%2B%25285%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MH3nUvc1Zug/WMgNAWQ90cI/AAAAAAAAArQ/cfq3r6hISZ8nRIdcMTVmk07jfvcMIPhRwCLcB/s1600/download%2B%25285%2529.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Last week (March 2017) I read Ben Rawlence’s<i> City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp</i> (published in 2016 by Random House Canada).&nbsp; Rawlence is a journalist and former researcher for Human Rights Watch. In this book, he focuses on nine (pseudonymous) people who live in the Dabaad refugee camp in eastern Kenya, close to the Somali border. About a half-million people live in the camp, which is in reality a huge city. Most residents are ethnic Somalis from Somalia, but others are refugees from Sudan and Ethiopia. Some, indeed, are Kenyans who live in the camp and register illegally as refugees in order to have access to free food.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">This doesn’t seem like a camp full of refugees in the usual sense, since many who live there cross back and forth to Somalia, the country they ostensibly fled. Maryam travels from Mogadishu to Dabaad to marry Guled, who has fled the terrorist Al-Shabaad group that had forcibly recruited him. Her mother comes with her, but later returns to Mogadishu and persuades Maryam to return there as well. They would rather live in a house with adequate food, even at the risk of being bombed, than live in a tent in Dabaad, reliant on rations that are often cut. In any event terrorists, presumably al-Shabaad, start attacking the camp itself, so one way or another, they face the threat of bombs. Meantime international aid personnel live in walled compounds. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Wa1HPNpJe14/WMgNykRNmZI/AAAAAAAAArY/tpM4DD4YMAQs-hS9eRT_q_E8aFy3Hg1yACLcB/s1600/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Wa1HPNpJe14/WMgNykRNmZI/AAAAAAAAArY/tpM4DD4YMAQs-hS9eRT_q_E8aFy3Hg1yACLcB/s200/th.jpg" width="131" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ben Rawlence</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">The camp is also are rife with what we might call corruption, but in practice is normal business. While the World Food Program (WFP) distributes rations on a strictly equitable basis, food is bought and sold. Even starving people sometimes sell their rations so that they can acquire enough funds to make a phone call home. Food destined for the camp is sold en route, and food distributed in the camp leaves it for Somalia. Some people amass fortunes while others starve.&nbsp; The Kenyan police who are supposed to maintain order can be bribed and bought. An honest Kenyan police supervisor is quickly dismissed, perhaps because the corruption reaches to the very top of the Kenyan political structure. Some WFP food even ends up in the hands of Al-Shabaad, the terrorist Islamist group whom the Somalis are ostensible fleeing.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DaibkaG-EZM/WMgNIaDGiKI/AAAAAAAAArU/bT6CJrAw0UkV6-BLcngOY4mAdQW9JA4nQCLcB/s1600/Oxfam_East_Africa_-_New_camp_stands_idle_and_closed_as_Somali_refugees_pour_into_Kenya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DaibkaG-EZM/WMgNIaDGiKI/AAAAAAAAArU/bT6CJrAw0UkV6-BLcngOY4mAdQW9JA4nQCLcB/s200/Oxfam_East_Africa_-_New_camp_stands_idle_and_closed_as_Somali_refugees_pour_into_Kenya.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dabaad refugee camp</td></tr></tbody></table><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">One reason for the corruption is that refugees are not permitted to work in the camp or outside it, as scarce jobs are reserved for Kenyans. Expatriate personnel are, however, permitted to offer refugees “incentive jobs” where they can work and learn skills at a tenth or less than other people are paid for the same job. There is fierce competition for these incentive jobs, as even the tiny amounts the refugees can earn put them at a distinct advantage over those who simply languish in tents, waiting for food handouts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Meantime the camp is rife with all the problems that any other city faces, including racism. Muna, a young Somali woman, falls in love with Monday, an older Sudanese man. They marry, but they cannot live in a Somali area of the camp because the Somalis as horrified that Muna has married a black man. They retreat to the Sudanese area where they are guarded night and day by Monday’s compatriots. When Muna gives birth, she has to be transferred to a hospital outside the camp because Somali nurses in the camp hospital have threatened to kill her child as soon as it is born.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Other Somali women and girls in the camp are still subject to the control of their male kin. The foreign aid workers offer numerous lessons on gender balance and other liberal norms of the Western world, but women who accept these norms are often considered to be outcasts. They are still expected to marry: relatives arrange their marriages to men who may be in the camp but may still be in Somalia. Dabaad camp is, in effect, merely an extension of Somalia itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sadly, just as I finished reading this book the media started publicizing another famine in Northern Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan. As usual, the WFP and other organizations began to appeal for funds.&nbsp; After reading <i>City of Thorns</i>, I wondered briefly what the point was of donating money. Would my donation actual reach the people who were starving, or would it merely enrich a businessman in a refugee camp? Worse, would it end up in the hands of Al-Shabaad or one of the unbelievably cruel and cynical warlords now wreaking havoc in South Sudan?&nbsp; If so, my donation might be used to buy weapons and kill the many people I would like to feed.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt;">Books like Rawlence’s run the risk of creating isolationists, people who wash their hands of conflicts in faraway places. What is the point of trying to help if so many people profit from the funds that we donate? I decided to make my usual financial contribution nevertheless, hoping that some of it might help to feed a few people somewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-48453229081920916582017-03-02T10:05:00.000-08:002017-03-02T10:05:05.131-08:00Malnutrition Confirmed in Venezuela<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Malnutrition Confirmed in Venezuela<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Recently my former research assistant on Venezuela, Antulio Rosales, forwarded me a report by Anabella Abadi in an English-language website called <i>Caracas Chronicles</i>. The report is called “Caritas Study finds Childhood Hunger Racing to Crisis Levels,” and it summarizes the finding of the Catholic organization, Caritas Venezuela, which surveyed children in several of the poorest regions of Venezuela. You can find Abadi’s article here. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/02/23/caritas-study-finds-childhood-hunger-racing-crisis-levels/" style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif;">https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/02/23/caritas-study-finds-childhood-hunger-racing-crisis-levels/</a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The gist of this report is that in Venezuela, once the richest country in Latin America, childhood malnutrition in some of the poorest areas of the country has now reached levels of what is called GAM, global acute malnutrition. When ten per cent of kids are malnourished, a region is at the serious level; when fifteen per cent are malnourished, it’s at the critical level. In twenty-five of the poorest parishes that Caritas surveyed, GAM was at 8.9 per cent between October and December 2016. Many of these parishes are isolated, with poor access to public services and high rates of poverty.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have been following Venezuela for several years, and have posted blogs on the situation there on several occasions. You can access them here:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2013/03/hugo-chavez-and-right-to-food-in.html"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">https://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2013/03/hugo-chavez-and-right-to-food-in.html</span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2013/10/venezuela-update-food-situation-worse.html"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">https://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2013/10/venezuela-update-food-situation-worse.html</span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2014_03_01_archive.html"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">https://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2014_03_01_archive.html</span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve also written an article in <i>Human Rights Quarterly</i> (volume 37, no.4, 2015, pp. 1024-45) on Venezuela, which you can access on-line or email me for a copy at <a href="mailto:hassmann@wlu.ca"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">hassmann@wlu.ca</span></a>. And I’ve discussed Venezuela in my recent book, <i>State Food Crimes</i> (Cambridge University Press, 2016).&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the time I sent my book to the press in October 2015, I had read one report about malnutrition and was worried about what might happen: now I know that it is quite widespread.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w8UzbGbixAU/WLhdNzM3cPI/AAAAAAAAArA/iVjCnNLnfeAcTzaxkmtg2kJAhreWTIYAQCEw/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w8UzbGbixAU/WLhdNzM3cPI/AAAAAAAAArA/iVjCnNLnfeAcTzaxkmtg2kJAhreWTIYAQCEw/s1600/download.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nicolas Maduro</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Conveniently, the government of Venezuela no longer releases statistics that could damage its international reputation. According to Abadi’s article, the last time the government released data on childhood malnutrition was in 2007, just at the time that food shortages started. UN data is out of date. And it’s even more worrisome that the Food and Agriculture Organization gave President Nicolás Maduro an award in 2013 for reducing malnutrition, when there was already plenty of evidence of food shortages. Maduro became President in 2013 after Hugo Chávez, the President whose policies started the food crisis, died.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As Abadi’s article said, the problem is not the low price of oil (which is often reported as the cause of food shortages, at least on CBC radio). And it’s not because of weather events. It’s because of incompetence, corruption, and an evolving dictatorship. For over a decade now the government has controlled the price of food; these prices are so low that many food producers and distributors have gone out of business. The government has also expropriated productive ranches and farms. I personally know a Venezuelan refugee here in Canada whose family’s ranch was expropriated, and now nothing is produced on it at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Food is rationed with guards standing outside supermarkets; people have to show their ID to get in and can only shop on certain days of the week. &nbsp;Sometimes they have to be willing to give biometric information as well. People line up for hours, sometimes for days, hoping to find food. There isn’t enough milk for babies.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">More and more people are moving to other countries to find food. There’s also a thriving smuggling industry where Venezuelans buy food at low prices in Venezuela itself, sell it across the border to Colombia where the price is raised, then other Venezuelans travel to Colombia to buy it back.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">Corruption eats up enormous amounts of food, whose distribution is controlled by the military.&nbsp; Exporters to Venezuela have to pay huge bribes; so do importers, truckers, buyers, local vendors, and everyone else in the supply chain. If you don’t pay the bribes, food is left to rot in plain sight of starving citizens. You can see a detailed article about this corruption here:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br /></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/64794f2594de47328b910dc29dd7c996/venezuela-military-trafficking-food-country-goes-hungry">http://bigstory.ap.org/article/64794f2594de47328b910dc29dd7c996/venezuela-military-trafficking-food-country-goes-hungry</a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to Abadi’s article, recently a high school student confronted President Maduro to complain that the lunch program at her school had been cancelled. In a show of supreme indifference, Maduro replied by asking her what she personally was doing to solve the food crisis, saying (according to Antulio’s translation) “You cannot just make a request, you have to mobilize, go to the streets so that your word is heard.”&nbsp; Maduro’s comment is ironic, given that the government has become increasingly repressive, jailing and torturing political opponents. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the problems here is that the international community can do so little to help Venezuelans. There’s no international law that says a country’s rulers can’t mess up the economy if they want to. There’s no option of humanitarian intervention. Maduro and his clique don’t care at all about international human rights law. The best option to pressure them is through the Organization of American States and other Latin American organizations, but so far that hasn’t stopped or even modified the corruption around food distribution.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif; font-size: 12pt;">&nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Malnutrition in Venezuela is entirely avoidable. A brutal, callous, stupid and corrupt leader supported by equally awful advisors caused it and perpetuates it. I don’t know whether Maduro is personally making money from oil revenues and food rations, but a lot of other people are. At best, he is an ignorant thug. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-20607072181305252232017-02-22T07:13:00.001-08:002017-02-22T07:14:27.507-08:00Rightlessness in an Age of Rights: Book Note<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rightlessness in an Age of Rights: Hannah Arendt and the Contemporary Struggles of Migrants</span></i><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">, by Ayten Gündoğlu: Book Note<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Note: I wrote this book review for <i>Human Rights </i>Quarterly: I am posting it with the permission of the editor, Bert Lockwood; the publication information is New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XKp4YqUmH4M/WK2qQGcMH9I/AAAAAAAAAqg/yZ7PXhRdy2gpguy2iUxDKi4YD1tyTi9kACLcB/s1600/download%2B%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XKp4YqUmH4M/WK2qQGcMH9I/AAAAAAAAAqg/yZ7PXhRdy2gpguy2iUxDKi4YD1tyTi9kACLcB/s1600/download%2B%25284%2529.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In <i>The Origins of Totalitarianism</i>, Hannah Arendt famously called<i> </i>for the “right to have rights.” Reflecting on her own status as a stateless refugee from Germany, Arendt broadened her analysis to include the problem of statelessness as a whole. Ayten Gündoğdu engages with the entirety of Arendt’s opus, especially with <i>The Human Condition</i> and <i>On Revolution</i>as well as with <i>The Origins, </i>to unpack the various meanings and implications of this call. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gündoğdu starts with what Arendt called the “perplexity” of the contradiction between state sovereignty and the universal enjoyment of human rights. Then and now, rights are protected--or not--by sovereign states that normally extend their protection only to their citizens, and perhaps non-citizens legally in their territory. The naked human being, unmoored from the state-people-territory framework, has no rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gündoğdu extends Arendt’s argument to cover all migrants, not only stateless people, focusing on their powerlessness and dehumanization. She grounds her analysis empirically in the dehumanization experienced by residents of camps for refugees and displaced people. She also refers to the appalling detention camps now dotting the world’s island geography, where potential refugee claimants live in endless limbo.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_c5ECJvu29k/WK2qb8Z5ocI/AAAAAAAAAqs/aC-1aWgMy-AzFMONarb61EsYWvYN-rCaQCLcB/s1600/download%2B%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_c5ECJvu29k/WK2qb8Z5ocI/AAAAAAAAAqs/aC-1aWgMy-AzFMONarb61EsYWvYN-rCaQCLcB/s1600/download%2B%25283%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hannah Arendt</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gündoğdu discusses the ways in which human beings actually manufacture, claim, and win human rights. She notes that Arendt criticized the “urge to approach social issues with a moralistic framework centered on compassion,” positioning those who faced injustice as “victims…erasing their singularity and denying them equal standing.”(p. 57) Gündoğdu analyzes the limits of compassion in the treatment of camp-dwellers, people without political agency who are mere objects to be administered. She is correct that compassion is not the best basis for solidarity. Camp dwellers cannot rely on compassion if they are to be treated as equal human beings enjoying liberty. Compassion and charity leave the human being at the mercy of others, mostly those of higher status who cannot help but look down upon those who are their administrative objects. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nevertheless, the real problem here is not that residents of refugee camps must rely on the compassion of those who administer them. Such administrators are probably well aware of the problems of subjecting residents to charity, but they are limited in what they can do by financial constraints and the state system. The UNHRC, other agencies of the UN system such as UNICEF, and non-governmental organizations such as <i>Médecins sans Frontières</i> are dependent upon voluntary financial contributions from states and compassionate private citizens. These voluntary contributions rarely, if ever, reach the amount needed merely to ensure that residents are not riddled by disease or suffering from malnutrition.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gündoğdu defends Arendt against charges of élitism made by other philosophers with whose work she engages. Arendt is criticized for denigrating manual and other kinds of labor, but Gündoğdu argues that she views both labor and work as crucial to human dignity. According to Gündoğdu, Arendt defined labor as day-to-day bodily maintenance and maintenance of one’s home and surroundings. This labor grounds the individual in the material world and provides her with a sense of routine, permanence, and community with others. By work, Arendt apparently meant creativity, the ability to make or build something new and worthwhile. Both labor and work are denied to residents of camps. Dependent for their every need on the compassion of others, they endure lives of complete boredom without social roles or responsibilities. This is a degraded form of “life,” without meaning or substance. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8J3Vt-kJFRM/WK2qWzG3v2I/AAAAAAAAAqk/843mUwoVLcwBN-x6k0kYnBmPY3Fy6CQSgCLcB/s1600/9780199370429.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8J3Vt-kJFRM/WK2qWzG3v2I/AAAAAAAAAqk/843mUwoVLcwBN-x6k0kYnBmPY3Fy6CQSgCLcB/s1600/9780199370429.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gündoğdu argues that Arendt did not rely on what philosophers call foundational principles of human rights. Rather, Arendt used an approach that Gündoğdu calls “founding.” Rights, she argues along with Arendt, are founded in political action, including “inaugural speech acts that bring forth new rights,” such as the French and American revolutionary documents (p. 209). To show how founding still applies, Gündoğdu describes the political movement of <i>sans-papiers</i> (people without papers) in France in the 1990s. Deliberately referencing the urban <i>sans-culottes</i> of the 1789 Revolution, this late twentieth-century movement demanded the same rights as citizens of France, claiming “rights that they [were] not yet authorized to claim” (p. 189). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gündoğdu discusses the 18<sup>th</sup> century foundational principle for human rights, what Ētienne Balibar calls “equaliberty” (p. 23). This conjoining of the principles of equality and liberty is not enough, however, to ensure the rights of twenty-first century migrants. Indeed, it is not enough to ensure the rights of anyone, including citizens of rights-protective democratic states. Even if citizens enjoy formal legal and political equality and the liberty to pursue their own interests, they may not be able to enjoy all their other human rights, especially their economic and social rights. Enjoyment of these rights requires a sense of community among all citizens and a state that engages in distributive and redistributive measures that ensure everyone’s access to a basic minimum of material security, as well as access to educational and cultural resources that permit all citizens to be efficacious members of their own political community.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How to extend this sense of community to strangers is a difficult question, however. Such extension requires recognition of “others” as human beings, whatever their differences. &nbsp;But such recognition does not mean that these others will be welcomed as full citizens into states that are otherwise democratic and rights-protective. Probably all Gündoğdu’s readers will agree with her principal concerns, that migrants should have human rights, that they should not have to rely on charity or compassion, and that they should be permitted to engage in political action and organization, whether within the camps to which they are confined or in the countries in which they enjoy no or precarious residency rights. These principles, however, confront limited material resources and limited integrational capacities, even in states that welcome (carefully-controlled numbers of ) refugees and immigrants. And they confront everywhere racist and nativist reactions against perceived foreigners. Sadly, the right to belong to humanity does not yet mean the right to citizenship.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While Gündoğdu’s reading of Arendt and other philosophers is profound and her arguments persuasive, her book ignores some legal and political realities. From the point of view of actual law and politics, her conflation of different types of people who no longer live in their homeland is confusing. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of the 232 million people that the United Nations tells us are people living outside the countries of their birth, some are legal migrants in or naturalized citizens of their new countries: for example, about twenty per cent of Canada’s 36 million residents are foreign-born, among whom most are legal residents and a substantial number are citizens. Figures differentiating naturalized citizens, legal migrants, migrants without legal status, refugees, refugee claimants, and stateless people would have served Gündoğdu’s analysis well. There are only about 12 million stateless people, the paradigmatic group with which her analysis is concerned. While this is 12 million people too many, it is also a far cry from 232 million people. While many migrants are de facto stateless, as Gündoğlu observes (p.4), many others continue to enjoy the legal protections of their natal states as well as of the states to which they move. Not all migrants are seen as “undeserving intruders” (p. 123): this is particularly so in the current round of globalization in which many high-status, highly-educated and wealthy people move easily across borders. Moreover, the book’s title suggests that Gündoğdu confines herself to migrants, but her analysis of the camps applies as much to those containing technically non-migrant, internally displaced people as to camps where migrants or refugees live.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Arendt may have used the philosophical term, “perplexity” to describe the plight of the naked human being without the protection of a state, but to a political scientist there is nothing perplexing about the contradiction between state sovereignty and human rights. The states that drafted the International Bill of Human Rights were anxious to maintain their sovereignty: just as anxious, if not more so, are the new states formed from ex-colonies since the end of the Second World War. Thus, while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims everyone’s right to seek asylum, no one has a right to asylum itself, as Gündoğdu notes: indeed, while everyone has the right to re-enter her own country, no one has the right to enter any other country. What commentators such as Gündoğdu call a crisis of statelessness (p. 35) is not a crisis for actual states, whose governors take for granted that they have no legal obligations to non-citizens who are not resident in their territories.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor will political scientists find Gündoğdu’s argument for basing human rights in human action—the “founding” of human rights—rather than in foundational philosophical principles particularly enlightening. That human rights are what human beings claim ought to be their rights is well known. Human rights are bound up in struggle, as Gündoğdu acknowledges. &nbsp;Rights claims change, as do the rights that (some) states grant, as new social groups enter the rights discourse and new aspects of human dignity such as respect for sexual orientation and gender identity are made. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite these criticisms, this is a very interesting book well worth reading. While it will be of principal interest to political philosophers, especially those engaged with Arendt’s work, others will also benefit from Gündoğdu’s discussion of the entirety of Arendt’s thought and how it applies to migrants and camp-dwellers of all kinds. Gündoğdu is a brilliant analyst, whose thinking is informed throughout by great empathy and by the very compassion that she herself criticizes.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-8616100007301990632017-01-30T11:35:00.001-08:002017-01-30T11:35:43.243-08:00Stop Appeasing Trump Now!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Stop Appeasing Trump Now!</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">All democrats everywhere, political leaders and ordinary citizens, must stop appeasing Donald Trump now.&nbsp; They must condemn his racist policies as strongly as they can. They must stop pretending that he is a normal, democratically elected leader. They must stop being diplomatic.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When we think of appeasement, we think of Neville Chamberlain going to Munich in 1938 to sign an agreement with Adolf Hitler and returning to Britain, saying, “peace in our time.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But the appeasement of Hitler started in 1933. Politicians and diplomats in the democratic Western world treated him like a normal political leader. They ignored his persecution of communists, socialists, trade unionists, liberals and Jews. Many people in Britain, the United States, and Canada even thought he had a point about communists and Jews. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s not sensible to make public policy decisions purely by analogy to past events. There’s also the old joke that the first person to invoke the name of Hitler in a political argument loses. But we can’t help thinking about Hitler now.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Since January 20 Trump has been decreeing arbitrary measures as if he has dictatorial powers.&nbsp; At best, he is behaving like a mad king; at worst, he is what he seems to be, a racist and an Islamophobe. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">People thought Hitler was mad too but that he could be controlled, and they were wrong. We can’t assume that Democrats will resume control of the Congress or Senate in 2018; we can’t assume Trump will be defeated in 2020; we can’t assume his successor in 2024 will be any more liberal than he is. We must join American democrats now to defeat Trump.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uK2czOq6AVQ/WI-TthI284I/AAAAAAAAApk/k4N_1A4ux_AVodY051ibUqUnNaniBhYJgCLcB/s1600/download%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uK2czOq6AVQ/WI-TthI284I/AAAAAAAAApk/k4N_1A4ux_AVodY051ibUqUnNaniBhYJgCLcB/s320/download%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Premier Philippe Couillard of Quebec</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Meantime here in Canada we see the effects of Islamophobic talk, as Premier Couillard of Quebec has pointed out. Words have meanings, words can hurt, and words can result in vicious actions such as the mass murder in a mosque on January 29 in Quebec City.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;The debate on “Quebec values” that the Parti Québecois unleashed in Quebec in 2013 legitimized prejudices against Muslims. In the guise of women’s rights and protection of a secular Quebec, the PQ suggested that Muslim citizens were less valuable than other citizens.&nbsp; Even though the PQ was defeated in the election a year later, the damage was done. (see my article on the Quebec Values Debate posted on December 8, 2016).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I think about Muslims today I think of my own family. My German grandparents escaped to Norway in 1938, from where they tried to enter the US. The American official in Oslo told them that my grandmother could enter as she was a Christian, but my grandfather could not as he was a Jew. Meantime one of my father’s Jewish cousins and her five-year-old daughter were denied entry into Canada: they died in the Holocaust.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I mention these personal stories because every Muslim and non-Muslim individual denied entrance to the US in the last few days has a personal story. So does every Muslim killed and wounded on January 29 in Quebec City. They all have names; they all have families; and many have suffered in ways that those of us who live in Canada will never experience. Instead of escaping from persecution, they now face more.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We must not appease those who would deny these Muslims their humanity. We must join with the Americans demonstrating in the streets and at airports. The US is a nation in danger of being taken over by fascists, if democrats world-wide appease the Trump dictatorship.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eg5Ibu_ZjhY/WI-UO9Z9ywI/AAAAAAAAAps/mXd02NkskfQarqV_ulDaBJzEaRW_ngrwgCLcB/s1600/download%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eg5Ibu_ZjhY/WI-UO9Z9ywI/AAAAAAAAAps/mXd02NkskfQarqV_ulDaBJzEaRW_ngrwgCLcB/s320/download%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">American pro-Muslim airport demonstration</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />Note:(January 30, 2017) this post has been accepted as an op-ed piece in the Hamilton (Canada) Spectator and should be appearing in the next few days.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-82397847379400453042017-01-10T06:47:00.001-08:002017-01-10T06:47:08.979-08:00The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien: Book Note<div class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">The Little Red Chairs </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">by Edna O’Brien: Book Note<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3W-CWDTDbZU/WHTzuYC66PI/AAAAAAAAApQ/XR5Ro98PFPUYPMz1ysjezNeXNg_TQthWgCLcB/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3W-CWDTDbZU/WHTzuYC66PI/AAAAAAAAApQ/XR5Ro98PFPUYPMz1ysjezNeXNg_TQthWgCLcB/s1600/download.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Edna O’Brien has written many novels about Irish girls and young women, most of which I’ve read over the years. This novel is very different, being very political. The reference in the title is to the 11,541 red chairs--including 643 chairs for children--set up in Sarajevo in 2012 to commemorate the siege of Sarajevo by Serbian forces during the ex-Yugoslavia wars.&nbsp; 2012 was the 20<sup>th</sup>anniversary of the siege. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;In Part I, a foreigner called Vladimir Dragan arrives in an improbably innocent Irish village, setting himself up as a “healer” and mesmerizing people with his charm, knowledge and exoticism.<b> </b>Fidelma, a beautiful 40-year-old who has endured two miscarriages, falls in love with him and begs him to impregnate her, which he does. Vlad is later exposed as a Serbian war criminal by the younger brother of one of his victims, who happens to be working in a nearby hotel. Vlad is arrested, while Fidelma is kidnapped and raped with a crowbar by his erstwhile enemies, killing her “Serbian” child. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Part II, Fidelma goes to London, where she lives a poverty-stricken life that puts her in touch with refugees, rape victims, illegal immigrants, and various other people living an underground life. Along the way there are several set pieces in which individuals tell each other their stories of war, migration, poverty, homelessness, and misogyny. At one point Fidelma lives with an African woman who migrated to London after her husband took a second wife, and whose neighbor is a lonely little girl who is not in school because she and her father are illegal immigrants. Another woman Fidelma meets has come to London to protect her daughter from female genital mutilation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Eventually Fidelma travels to The Hague, where Vlad is now on trial. After realizing he will never apologize to her or acknowledge his crimes, she returns to Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The character of Vlad is based on Radovan Karadzic, a psychiatrist who from 1992 to 1996 was President of Republika Skrypska, a Serbian enclave in Bosnia. After 1996 he hid in plain sight for many years within Yugoslavia, posing as an “alternative healer.” It’s thought that Serbian authorities knew where he was but protected him. He was eventually arrested and sent to the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. He was convicted on March 24, 2016 of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Vlad shows how psychologically complex mass murderers can be; he loves flowers and poetry and plays the gusle (a musical instrument that looks like a one-stringed violin). We know that many Nazis, including Nazi doctors, had similarly complex psyches, enjoying classical concerts played by Jewish prisoners after long days of mass murder. Edna O’Brien said in an interview that she found Karadzic’s “duality” as a mass murderer and a healer interesting: I just thought he was preying on vulnerable people with fake cures.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In discussion with fellow members of my book clubs, the question came up what the theme of <i>The Little Red Chairs </i>might have been. Perhaps it was evil. Vlad is evil’s embodiment, and Fidelma wonders if she was complicit in evil. She feels remorseful for having slept with Vlad, even though she did not know his true identity at the time. She does not tell ex-Yugoslavian refugees whom she meets in London about the rape and torture she herself endured, when they criticize her for her relationship with Vlad. When she visits him in The Hague, she expects Vlad to feel express remorse but instead he mocks her quest for “truth, justice, atonement.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another theme was women’s suffering, especially the suffering of the various women characters who endure miscarriage, still-born births, and various “natural” tragedies not connected to politics. In her autobiography, <i>Country Girl, </i>Edna O’Brien recounts her own suffering as a woman, which I describe in my blog of April 7, 2015:</span> <a href="http://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2015/04/book-note-country-girl-memoir-by-edna.html"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">http://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2015/04/book-note-country-girl-memoir-by-edna.html</span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. This raises the questions of whether all women might be “sisters,” because all are vulnerable to such natural tragedies, but is this false sisterhood. Miscarriages and stillbirths, however sad, do not compare to rapes, torture, and warfare.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;I didn’t find this to be as fulfilling a novel as many other readers did. There were too many set pieces, seemingly inserted so that O’Brien could incorporate as many political themes as possible, so that the book seemed rather didactic. Too many characters are introduced but then don’t reappear. It seems as if O’Brien invented the character of Fidelma in order to tie together disparate political events and misogynist practices. In the end, O’Brien brings all her characters together for a performance <i>of Midsummer Night’s Dream. </i>I looked up the plot summary of this play by William Shakespeare and found it very confusing, and I could not see any analogies to characters in this novel.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nevertheless, professors who read this blog might want to assign <i>The Little Red Chairs </i>to their students.&nbsp; It is a good way to introduce students to scholarship on genocide, transitional justice, and women’s rights (or lack thereof).&nbsp; I discussed these topics when I presented the book recently to one of my book clubs. In the past I’ve often used memoirs or novels to introduce students to various political events, and found that to be a successful teaching method.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-46720815537557126772016-12-08T17:59:00.000-08:002017-11-06T08:31:54.075-08:00Minority vs. Group Rights in Quebec<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">Dear Readers:&nbsp; In 2016 I posted an entire academic article on minority rights in Quebec on this blog, because I got tired of waiting for formal review by an academic journal.&nbsp; Since then Bert Lockwood, the editor of Human Rights Quarterly, has accepted the paper for publication in HRQ, volume 40, no. 1, February 2018.&nbsp; So this is an announcement of the forthcoming publication, along with the abstract below.&nbsp; Please contact me at hassmann@wlu.ca if you would like an advance copy of the article.&nbsp;</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Minority vs. Group Rights:&nbsp; Manifestation of Religious Beliefs vs. “Quebec Values”</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">by Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Abstract: </span></b><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This paper investigates the debate in the province of Quebec, Canada in 2013 over a Charter of Quebec Values introduced by the separatist ruling party, the Parti Quebecois. It relies in particular on government documents, debates in Quebec’s National Assembly, and editorials in the French press. It relates the Charter to the preceding Bouchard-Taylor Commission Report in 2008 on accommodation by public bodies of particular religious requests. The debates concerned the right to manifest one’s religion, the rights of (particularly Muslim) women, and the rights of the collectivity as opposed to the minority. Part of the debate was about Quebec’s particular policy of interculturalism, as opposed to Canada’s policy of multiculturalism. The paper concludes with a discussion of liberalism, minority rights and collective rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-4446905640154409022016-12-05T14:39:00.000-08:002016-12-06T11:31:49.088-08:00Sultan Trump: Personalist Rule in the USA<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sultan Trump: Personalist Rule in the USA</span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U0cdNu26w38/WEXr0csOavI/AAAAAAAAAo0/uyqrKi1XdR0wJiMjo0SRf4WFTxjX-EaXQCLcB/s1600/415W9FTFX4L._AC_US160_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U0cdNu26w38/WEXr0csOavI/AAAAAAAAAo0/uyqrKi1XdR0wJiMjo0SRf4WFTxjX-EaXQCLcB/s1600/415W9FTFX4L._AC_US160_.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>Back in 1982, when I was still specializing in African studies, a very important new book was published. Edited by Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rotberg, it was called <i>Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant </i>(University of California Press)<o:p></o:p><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the time, many scholars were trying to figure out why so many African countries did not become democratic after they gained their independence from colonial rule. The reason, the authors in this book argued, was that African “big men” were personalist rulers. They didn’t care about laws, political institutions, or consistency in public policy. All they did was decide on a personal basis who got what when. And often the people who got— who were given profits, land, mines, slaves, women, graft from foreign aid—were the big men themselves, their relatives and their friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These types of rulers engaged in what the early-20<sup>th</sup>century sociologist, Max Weber, called kadi justice. The ruler made decisions about justice on an ad hoc, individual basis: he didn’t refer to rational principles and he wasn’t concerned with consistency. This was the type of justice, Weber thought, that Muslim sultans often engaged in.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dPQ0S3oRbIs/WEXsR0MksjI/AAAAAAAAAo4/0DkKhy6bkIchYN_9w1I97uslKXs36CGqgCLcB/s1600/thY7RTI8LB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dPQ0S3oRbIs/WEXsR0MksjI/AAAAAAAAAo4/0DkKhy6bkIchYN_9w1I97uslKXs36CGqgCLcB/s1600/thY7RTI8LB.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Max Weber</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Kadi rulers still exist, for example in Saudi Arabia. You can go to the local prince’s house, line up for an audience (literally, a hearing) with him, and hope that he’ll be interested in your case and give you justice.&nbsp; But he can just as easily brush you off or even arrest you for questioning his authority or complaining about one of his relatives or cronies. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Donald Trump is now a “big man,” the biggest in the world. His idea of justice is to dish out goodies to his family and cronies. He’s brought in some of the richest men on Wall Street to his government, even though throughout the election he derided Hillary Clinton’s alleged ties to Wall Street. He’s behaving just like the personalist rulers in Africa who smile smugly as they dispense billions of dollars in graft to their families, ethnic kinsmen, and friends. And who occasionally dole out a few dollars or privileges to the “little men” who beg them for help.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And it seems that what Trump would really like to be is a sultan. He showed that last week (end of November, 2016) when he negotiated a deal with a company called Carrier to preserve about 1,000 jobs in Indiana. The employer had been threatening to move the factory to Mexico. To save the jobs, he promised the parent company, United Technologies, about $7 million in incentives. You can read about the deal here:</span> <span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/donald-trump-carrier-workers-indiana-1.3875277">http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/donald-trump-carrier-workers-indiana-1.3875277</a>&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So now Trump feels good: 1000 people and their families are grateful to him and many voters think that he is able to keep his promise to keep jobs in the USA, despite technological developments and despite globalization. Those 1,000 people, though, will probably lose their jobs fairly soon, as the other 1100 people working for Carrier in Indiana already have. Meantime, other companies have learned that if they threaten to move out of the US, they too may receive goodies from Trump in return for staying.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When Trump did this deal with Carrier he ignored precedent, he ignored consequences, and he ignored the actual policies of the US government. &nbsp;He preferred crony capitalism, a characteristic of states where rich people and political leaders are cronies. He was completely oblivious to what Weber called “rational,” or rule-bound, justice. Rational justice applies to everyone and is consistent in its application. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After he negotiated this deal, Trump went on a “thank you” tour, where he once again enjoyed the adulation of the crowds that had voted for him. Sultans do this too. They periodically pick up their tents and travel with great fanfare around the country, where residents cheer them (whether they really want to or not). Like African chiefs who have “praise-singers” to accompany them when they travel, Middle Eastern sultans want praise: power is not enough for them. And God help those who don’t praise them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And God help not only all those Americans who don’t praise Trump, but even those who do, and who will learn soon enough that having an irrational, personalist ruler means they can’t predict what the future holds for them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-9578122819548340972016-11-09T14:14:00.000-08:002016-11-09T14:14:02.493-08:00Trump's Victory: A Revolt against Complexity? <br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Trump’s Victory: A Revolt against Complexity?</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Like many Canadians, this morning (November 9, 2016) I woke to the shocking news that Donald Trump is to be the next President of the United States.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>I am no expert on American elections, and I am waiting to find out who voted for Trump where and why. Most of the pundits I’ve listened to or read discussed disaffected white male voters lacking a college education. But such people are a relatively small part of the entire American population. To whom else did he appeal?</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I think that one appeal he had was to people who want simple solutions to their problems.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>“Elite”, “establishment” politicians like Hillary Clinton can’t offer them such simple solutions.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span></span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Trump speaks slowly. He uses simple language (although according to a recent report on the CBC program <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As It Happens</i>, there was a surge of searches of the Miriam-Webster dictionary for the word “stamina,” after he said Clinton lacked it).<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>He proposes very simple solutions to very complex problems. He repeats his key phrases ad infinitum. (And he has a reassuringly deep male voice, unlike Clinton, whose voice became higher and more strained as the campaign wore on.)</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Trump presents clear explanations and enemies. China is the reason free trade deals don’t work.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>Free trade deals deprive Americans of jobs. Illegal immigrants, mostly Mexican, are the reason that Americans can’t get those jobs that remain. Muslims in general cause terrorism. There’s too much crime. All these problems can be fixed by one-step solutions: end free trade, deport illegal immigrants, deny entry to Muslims, let police use stop-and-frisk tactics. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Trump implies that there are simply solutions to complex foreign-policy questions. Hillary Clinton should have known what to do about ISIS, and she didn’t (this is, of course, partly because she wasn’t Secretary of State when ISIS arose). <span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp;</span>Trump “alone,” as he frequently said, knows what to do in the Middle East. <span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp;</span>He isn’t interested in the Middle East’s complex history, America’s role in destabilizing the region, or the numerous political and military actors involved. Bomb the hell out of them is probably his solution. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Trump is anti-fact. This plays well with people who don’t like evidence, who like to form their opinions based on their prejudices, who don’t like to evaluate the legitimacy of the sources they watch or read.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>Facts aren’t just irrelevant; they are an annoying challenge to imagined reality.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>Facts are what teachers expect you to consider.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">So for Trump and his fans, the “elite” isn’t the rich, including him. The elite is those who insist on complexity, who try to evaluate conflicting pieces of evidence, who refer to empirical facts rather than to prejudices. They are highly educated people. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">I’ve seen the same attitude among some of my neighbours and among acquaintances at the gym where I assiduously lift weights three times a week.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>I’ve been advised to read the “Clinton Chronicles” instead of mainstream media (actually, I read “elite” media such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i>and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Review of Books).</i>I’ve been told that I would learn that Hillary Clinton does not even have a law degree from Yale, that the Clintons used their time in Arkansas to run drugs into that state, and that the Clinton foundation is stealing billions from Africa. I’ve learned that I should just thank these individuals for the information they offer me and carry on: there’s no use arguing.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">In January 2016 I posted a blog discussing whether Trump was a fascist. You can find it here: <span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp;</span></span><a href="http://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2016/01/donald-trump-and-fascism-debate.html"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">http://rhodahassmann.blogspot.ca/2016/01/donald-trump-and-fascism-debate.html</span></span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp;</span>I think he does have some characteristics common to earlier fascist regimes, and of course to the nationalist, anti-immigrant right in the United Kingdom, France, Hungary and elsewhere today. But maybe it is not so much fascism as simplicity that is attractive to Trump’s voters. Hitler blamed Jews, modern demagogues blame foreigners like Mexicans, Muslims, and Chinese. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Trump claims he can fix Americans’ problems easily and quickly, implying that the elites he despises could do so too if they weren’t so self-interested. People want to believe him, so they do. As my local paper, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hamilton Spectator</i>, reminded its readers in an editorial this morning by Howard Elliott, Canada is not immune to Trump’s type of appeal. As Elliott put it, “We should be worried.” </span><a href="http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/6954935-the-spectator-s-view-we-should-be-worried/"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/6954935-the-spectator-s-view-we-should-be-worried/</span></span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"></span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Meantime, my biggest worry is that the US will shortly have a President who denies climate change and who thinks that it’s okay for more countries to obtain nuclear weapons. His saner Republican advisors will probably persuade him that the latter isn’t a good idea, but many of them also deny climate change. Climate change is probably too complex for many Republican voters to understand, though for others, mitigation of climate change might lower their profits.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The real elite is the one Trump belongs to: the corrupt, self-interested, tax-avoiding, scofflaw capitalist class.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><br /></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><br /></div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-21031961373376690152016-10-20T13:31:00.003-07:002016-10-20T13:31:54.725-07:00The Return by Hisham Matar: Book Notes <br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The Return by Hisham Matar: Book Note</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">This week I read Hisham Matar’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Return </i>(Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2016). Matar is a novelist of Libyan descent, now in his mid-40s, based in London. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Return</i> is a memoir about his 2012 visit to Benghazi, in Eastern Libya, in the brief period between the overthrow of the dictator Muammar Qadaffi and Libya’s descent into civil war. Matar’s large extended family (he had 130 first cousins) was based in Benghazi and a smaller southern town called Ajdabiya. </span></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0TlhOr5EJEw/WAkpjFYLUlI/AAAAAAAAAoY/z2ATod__Q3kWBYDdqy8awlTEy2Z5bpVYQCLcB/s1600/thJZ060SLL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="159" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0TlhOr5EJEw/WAkpjFYLUlI/AAAAAAAAAoY/z2ATod__Q3kWBYDdqy8awlTEy2Z5bpVYQCLcB/s200/thJZ060SLL.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hisham Matar</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The purpose of Matar’s visit was to find out what had happened to his father,Jaballa Matar, apparently a democracy activist opposed to Qadaffi. The family had left Libya for Cairo in 1979, where they thought they were safe, but in 1990 Egyptian authorities turned Jaballa over to Libya.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>He was probably then incarcerated and tortured in a notorious Tripoli prison called Abu Salim. The family received a few smuggled letters from him until 1996, when the letters stopped. Jaballa was probably killed in a massacre at Abu Salim in 1996. Guards and soldiers took several hours to machine-gun over 1200 prisoners concentrated in six prison courtyards. But Hisham Matar never found out for sure what had happened to his father.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g1Q0-0pQa2s/WAkpWdYksII/AAAAAAAAAoU/H_ZDUi40fCYz-gG523OVR3QztM55hk5NQCLcB/s1600/thB0QJ1XJ1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g1Q0-0pQa2s/WAkpWdYksII/AAAAAAAAAoU/H_ZDUi40fCYz-gG523OVR3QztM55hk5NQCLcB/s200/thB0QJ1XJ1.jpg" width="133" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Matar provides some historical background to these events. His description of Italy’s conquest of Libya in the early decades of the twentieth century reminds me of the all the massacres—indeed genocides—by Europeans who conquered Africa. The population of Tripoli fell by one-sixth between 1911 and 1916, as the Italians especially selected “scholars, jurists, wealthy traders and bureaucrats” (p. 32) to murder, exile or imprison. They also established enormous concentration camps in which thousands of starving Libyans were kept in rags. Under Mussolini entire villages were gassed and bombed. Matar’s own grandfather was a tribal resistance leader who for some unknown reason was not assassinated by the Italians. (Matar bases his description of the Italian conquest in part on a book by a Danish journalist, Knud Holboe, who was murdered in Jordan, perhaps by Italian intelligence.)</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The sadism practiced by Qadaffi’s regime is also beyond belief. Many family members were unaware until 2002 of the deaths of their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers in the 1996 prison massacre. That year officials came to their doors to ask for the “family books” in which each family officially registered birth, marriages and deaths. A few weeks after taking the books, the officials would return them, saying all was in order. Some families checked the books right away, others not till days or even weeks later. When they did, they discovered that “died of natural causes in 1996” had been written over the names of their imprisoned family members.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">One mother made a twelve-hour trip every month to see her son in Abu Salim. After 1996 she never saw him again. But every month, the guards would accept the gifts of food, clothing, and soap that she had brought him, and encourage her to come the next month. Not until she examined the family book after the officials returned it in 2002 did she learn that for six years, she had been making futile trips to visit a dead man and supplying guards with goods that they could sell to surviving prisoners or keep for their own families.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Matar’s memoir is a little disingenuous. He never informs the reader of the name of his father’s oppositional “organization” based in Chad. Nor does he inform the reader of the name of the tribe he came from, based in Benghazi. Jaballa Matar was adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, which suggests that he was a non-violent activist for democracy. But it would have been nice to have more concrete political information so that one could follow current events in Libya more clearly.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Nevertheless, if, like me, you know hardly anything about Libya, this book is a good place to start. It exposes how truly dreadful Qaddafi’s regime was, and puts the lie to those who nostalgically remember his “orderly” society in these days of civil war. It also introduces the reader to a family of patriotic scholars, poets, engineers and diplomats, an extended cosmopolitan family still strongly rooted in Arab tradition. But this type of family—nationalistic, patriotic, but still tolerant and learned, is fast being destroyed all over the Middle East. <span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp;</span></span></div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-86505048477740321132016-10-06T08:06:00.003-07:002016-10-06T08:06:40.504-07:00White Africans: Is There Such a Thing? <br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">White Africans: Is There Such a Thing?</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">In the past few days there have been reports in the Canadian and international press about a white farming family that escaped from Zimbabwe to Canada; the father had rights to live here through his grandfather.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>Danielle and Mark McKinnon and their three young children fled after various officials and private individuals claimed ownership of their farm. Three years ago, Mark MacKinnon was kidnapped and beaten. They had had enough and decided to leave.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">This is just the latest in the sorry tale of expulsions of white farmers from Zimbabwe. While the official myth is that all white owners of large productive farms inherited them from the original British colonists in what was formerly Southern Rhodesia, this is untrue. A substantial proportion of the farmers bought their property legally after independence in 1980.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>The government had the right of first refusal on all such sales, and if it decided not to buy, then white (and black) farmers were free to do so.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UhCKlx3JNMg/V_Znu4oS9pI/AAAAAAAAAn4/p2Cc_YGATOcpOBxzfb5Th-ZAVbU0xNkTACLcB/s1600/thXZW439ZC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UhCKlx3JNMg/V_Znu4oS9pI/AAAAAAAAAn4/p2Cc_YGATOcpOBxzfb5Th-ZAVbU0xNkTACLcB/s200/thXZW439ZC.jpg" width="128" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">As it happens, last week I read another tale of white people in Zimbabwe, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Last Resort </i>by Douglas Rogers (published in 2009 by Harmony Books). Rogers’ book is about his white parents, who in 1990 legally bought land near Mutare, Zimbabwe. There they established a backpackers’ resort and also built 16 small chalets for rent. This resort became quite famous and was featured in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lonely Planet</i>, a guide for inexpensive world travel. Until 2009 Rogers’ parents survived as owners living in their own house, mainly by ignoring what their black African tenants were using their property for; first as a brothel and then as a refuge for illegal diamond traders. I couldn’t discover what happened to them after 2009. </span></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k0CQV-nInnA/V_ZoWcLyaUI/AAAAAAAAAoA/eKsWW6OQ0GsxLGUScefqnFO_YI5NJprygCLcB/s1600/thW0ZRLUS9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k0CQV-nInnA/V_ZoWcLyaUI/AAAAAAAAAoA/eKsWW6OQ0GsxLGUScefqnFO_YI5NJprygCLcB/s1600/thW0ZRLUS9.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Douglas Rogers</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">This leads to the question whether white people can be considered indigenous Africans. On one side, Rogers’ ancestors had lived in Africa for 350 years. While nowadays many white Africans take advantage of their residual citizenship rights in places like Ireland, in case they are expelled, Rogers’ parents had no such rights. Nevertheless, at one point his mother was declared effectively stateless. Zimbabwean authorities refused to renew her passport unless she renounced her British<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and South African citizenship rights. She had no such rights, but she had to visit the South African and British consuls to obtain their certification that she didn’t. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">So what does it mean to be indigenous?<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>We can easily agree that the people who lived in Zimbabwe or South Africa (or Canada or Australia) before Europeans arrived were indigenous to those territories.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>But are people who know no other home, who were born and grew up in those countries, and whose ancestors, in many cases, arrived decades or centuries before, also to be considered indigenous? Or does skin color mark you as a permanent outsider?</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The legal solution to this problem is to ignore the question of who is indigenous and focus on citizenship rights instead. If a country’s laws says you are a citizen if you are born there or are naturalized there, that should be the end of it.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>But some countries allocate citizenship not on the basis of birthplace but of ancestry. You can be born in a country and your parents can be born there too, and still not be a citizen if your most immediate ancestor in that country is from somewhere else. This is the type of law that made it easy for the Nazis to render German Jews stateless in the 1930s, and still makes it difficult for German-born people whose ancestors emigrated from countries such as Turkey to become citizens.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span></span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">It seems like Zimbabwe would like to move from citizenship by birthplace to citizenship by ancestry. It’s been applying this criterion not only to white Zimbabweans but to people whose ancestors migrated from places like Malawi. Anything to get rid of people who don’t support Robert Mugabe’s thuggish regime. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The anti-white rhetoric in Zimbabwe under its aged dictator, Robert Mugabe, is outright racist.<span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp; </span>As I document in my new book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">State Food Crimes, </i>he’s said all sorts of terrible things, stirring populist anger against white people and justifying his campaign of theft of their land. This theft <span style="margin: 0px;">&nbsp;</span>has resulted in enormous economic upheaval and shortages of food. No matter to Mugabe and his allies: they don’t care. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BdBsszdA1bw/V_Zn7DQRhwI/AAAAAAAAAn8/loskxgJzzjorbHixSY_o6EIVTfZlgZ47QCLcB/s1600/thSSBXG7N1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BdBsszdA1bw/V_Zn7DQRhwI/AAAAAAAAAn8/loskxgJzzjorbHixSY_o6EIVTfZlgZ47QCLcB/s1600/thSSBXG7N1.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert Mugabe</td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Populist anger against so-called outsiders is always dangerous, whether it’s Robert Mugabe in Africa or Donald Trump in the United States. In Africa, populist anger against white Africans (and also Asian Africans, in earlier times such as in Idi Amin’s Uganda in the 1970s) has ruined national economies. If populists take power in South Africa and force their indigenous white population to flee, the same thing will happen there. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">White Africans are indigenous to Africa. You can’t go on claiming that white people are outsiders because their extremely remote ancestors came from Europe. Calling people “settlers,” despite their birthplaces and despite their legal purchases of land, puts them permanently at risk. Their citizenship rights and their human rights are under constant threat, and the entire society suffers as a result. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;"><br /></div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-14788064663676556202016-09-06T09:34:00.001-07:002016-09-06T09:34:13.179-07:00Even Silence has an End, by Ingrid Betancourt: Book Note <br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Broadway; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even Silence Has an End, by Ingrid Betancourt: Book Note</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VV21YlsS5f0/V87vnj7DTMI/AAAAAAAAAnk/30SlHOmggIYb3vUX92P-wvQVyg8O7taawCLcB/s1600/thXABZ7OAJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VV21YlsS5f0/V87vnj7DTMI/AAAAAAAAAnk/30SlHOmggIYb3vUX92P-wvQVyg8O7taawCLcB/s1600/thXABZ7OAJ.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Recently I read Ingrid Betancourt’s memoir (published in English in 2010 by Penguin Books) of her six years in captivity with the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Betancourt was the leader of the “Green” party in Colombia, campaigning for the Presidency when she was captured in 2002. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Colombia has endured an appalling civil war for 52 years between the government and FARC. The FARC's tactics included taking prisoners for ransom or for negotiating purposes. Ransoms were useful in supporting its activities, although much of its money in later years came from the illegal narcotics trade. Betancourt’s capture was a negotiating tool, as she was a prominent public figure in Colombia. She was also a dual French-Colombian citizen, so the French government was interested in her release.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As a valuable commodity for FARC, Betancourt was not subjected to rape or any other form of sexual abuse, and was able to report a young man—a child soldier—who was peeping at her as she went about her daily business. Nor was she subjected to any violent form of torture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>She was, however, underfed, sometimes deliberately. And after several escape attempts, she spent quite a lot of time in chains. Some of her guards would tighten the chain around her neck if they were displeased with her.</span></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rxp89khu2OY/V87vvJqDwLI/AAAAAAAAAno/P9K2fisA8E4yVv6jLZ14MzTWZjNz3rLjACLcB/s1600/thNDKAV8F2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rxp89khu2OY/V87vvJqDwLI/AAAAAAAAAno/P9K2fisA8E4yVv6jLZ14MzTWZjNz3rLjACLcB/s320/thNDKAV8F2.jpg" width="208" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ingrid Betancourt</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The memoir shows how people who might have joined FARC out of poverty, or genuine belief in its original revolutionary ideals, were corrupted by power. The guards used the small amount of autonomy they possessed to humiliate their prisoners in unnecessary ways. Many of the FARC guards were child soldiers, who quickly learned the ways of their elders. Betancourt had some sympathy for the children, especially for the young girls who along with being guards and soldiers put on lipstick and talked of the boys and men they were in love with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>FARC child soldiers do not appear to have been subjected to the same horrible brutalities one reads about elsewhere, such as child soldiers in Sierra Leone or Congo who were forced to kill other children as part of their initiation into rebel armies. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Several things kept Betancourt going throughout this terrible six-year ordeal. One was weekly messages via radio from her mother and sometimes from her children, who were not living in Colombia as it was too dangerous for them: they lived elsewhere with their father. A special radio station delivered these messages, and most of the time the FARC permitted her to listen to them. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another thing that kept her going was her love for her children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>At various times she persuaded her guards to give her birthday cakes for her children’s birthdays. She and other prisoners, and sometimes guards, would then “celebrate” the birthday, singing Happy Birthday and pretending that the child could hear.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Betancourt was also Roman Catholic, and as far as I could determine, her faith strengthened during her years with the FARC. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Faith is something I do not personally understand, as a life-long atheist, but it clearly sustained her.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Other hostages who were imprisoned with Betancourt disagree with her account of her captivity: some saying that she acted like a “queen bee” and demanded—and received--special privileges from FARC. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>I can’t comment on those allegations, as I have only her account to go by. But she strikes me as an exceptionally brave woman, who in very difficult circumstances (including sometimes having to share quarters with several men) managed to maintain her sense of self and her human dignity.</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t possess any expertise on Colombian politics, and indeed I didn’t follow Colombia in the news until I read this book. I have met two people from Colombia in my life. One was a recent student, whose family fled to Canada as refugees after the FARC demanded that they give up some land they owned to it. I asked him why they didn’t just give up the land, and he said the FARC would then hound the family for all its possessions, and possibly kidnap them for ransom. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>The other person I met was a human rights activist, a woman in her early thirties. I met her at a seminar in the University of Lund (Sweden) human rights program in 2005. She told me that she had decided never to have children, as they would be at too much risk, given her activities. That struck me then, and now, as an enormous sacrifice. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As it happens, FARC and the government of Colombia are concluding negotiations for a peace treaty as I write this. The treaty is controversial as it includes amnesties for both FARC leaders and military officials who committed atrocities. There will be a national vote on the treaty, and according to the news sources I read, it’s not at all certain that voters will accept it. There’s a huge debate among scholars of what is known as “transitional justice” (or injustice?) about whether people who commit crimes against humanity or war crimes should be given amnesty in the interests of national peace, or forced to stand trial even if convictions will undermine the peace process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>In this case, my guess is that amnesty is necessary for peace, however unjust it is. </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-184369846169308782016-08-14T10:24:00.000-07:002016-08-14T10:28:45.975-07:00Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years by N.O. Body: Book Note<br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years</span></i><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> by N.O.Body: Book Note</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Recently my husband and I watched the film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Danish Girl.</i> The film stars Eddie Redmayne in a brilliant depiction of a man who wants to live as—and eventual to biologically be—a woman. Redmayne is brilliant and would probably have won the Oscar for best actor, had he not won it the year before for his performance as Steven Hawkings, the severely disabled physicist, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Theory of Everything</i>. </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-70O7Qmk8Mc0/V7Cpl53daDI/AAAAAAAAAnE/CUfnL739MYcmlM2dAe-P6Exa-SvSTWNrgCEw/s1600/thMH8I7L4L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-70O7Qmk8Mc0/V7Cpl53daDI/AAAAAAAAAnE/CUfnL739MYcmlM2dAe-P6Exa-SvSTWNrgCEw/s1600/thMH8I7L4L.jpg" /></a></span></div></div><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The film is loosely based on the true story of an early 20<sup>th</sup> century Danish artist, Einar Wegener, later Lili Elbe. He gradually became a she, and lived as a lesbian couple with his wife in Paris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>In 1931 she died after surgery in Germany attempting to transplant a womb into her body.</span><br /><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This movie reminded me of a book by the pseudonymous (obviously) N.O. Body, called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years</i>, originally published in German in 1907 and republished by the University of Pennsylvania Press in English translation in 2006, almost a century later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>These are the actual—but partially fictionalized-- memoirs of N.O. Body, but with a useful preface by Sandor Gilman and an Afterword by Hermann Simon that explains the actual facts about N.O. Body’s life. The original book was also published under the pseudonym N.O. Body, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>taken from the English “nobody.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kkiNugDh0B4/V7CpuYV6zeI/AAAAAAAAAnI/vj8iDrZonB0DrH-opC1xhqOBPsN8kofNQCLcB/s1600/41uquc5YxjL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kkiNugDh0B4/V7CpuYV6zeI/AAAAAAAAAnI/vj8iDrZonB0DrH-opC1xhqOBPsN8kofNQCLcB/s200/41uquc5YxjL.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Memoirs</i>are of a person who appeared to have been intersex, not transgender. For those of you who are still not familiar with these terms, intersex people are people born with both male and female organs (external or internal). Transgender people might also be intersex, or they could simply be people who “feel” themselves to be the other gender. Sometimes they live as the other gender without having surgery; other times they may also have surgery. In the case of Wegener/Elbe, the person on whose life <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Danish Girl</i>was based, s/he may also have been intersex, possessing residual ovaries. </span><br /><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to his memoirs, N.O. Body was born with ambiguous external genitalia. Her (as he then was) mother wanted to take the baby to a specialist, but her father refused. So she was raised as a female, despite the fact that both the household servants (who appeared to have been paid off) and other children noticed something odd about her. At the time of puberty, she developed an unusually deep voice for a female and also grew facial hair, while never developing breasts or menstruating. She also developed sexual feelings for females.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite this, N.O. Body continued to live as a woman, taking a job in a city as a shop-girl but then, according to the story, becoming a reporter in Eastern Europe. There she met another woman and fell in love. Fortuitously, according to the story, she eventually met a doctor who examined her and confirmed that she actually was a man who needed a “simple operation” to clarify her/his external genitalia. She had this operation and returned to Eastern Europe to find her true love, who divorced her original husband and married her. </span><br /><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Interestingly, as the Afterword by Hermann Simon explained, this story was also wrapped up in European anti-Semitism. N.O. Body claimed in his memoir to have been born into a Catholic family, but was actually Jewish. Her reporting assignment in Eastern Europe as Marie Baer was to investigate the Jewish “white slave trade” on behalf of a German Jewish agency. His true name was Karl M. Baer, and after he became a man he was the director of the Berlin B’nai B’rith until he left Germany in 1938. The “accidental” meeting with a doctor was actually a consultation with the great German-Jewish sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld. The part about the love affair is true though. After she became a man, Baer returned to Eastern Europe and did indeed marry the woman he loved, although sadly, she died soon after. He remarried but never had children. </span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Talk about intersex people and transgender people is hard for some people to wrap their heads around, and seems to go against the order of nature. As the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said in a speech to the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Human Rights Council, an organ of the UN, “I understand…like many people of my generation, I did not grow up talking about these issues.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He was firm in his insistence on human rights for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, but tactful in the way he introduced this subject to people from many parts of the world where—as in my own parents’ generation in Britain and Europe—you simply did not talk about these things. (you can find the quote from Ban Ki-Moon in a brilliant article by my former student Elizabeth Baisley in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Human Rights Quarterly</i>, vol. 38, no. 1, 2016, entitled “Reaching the Tipping Point? Emerging International Human Rights Norms Pertaining to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”, p. 159).</span><br /><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have sometimes talked about homosexuality in seminars with human rights activists from various parts of the world, including Africans and Indonesians, Christians and Muslims. I’ve done this after being warned by colleagues not to do so. I’ve found that these activists are receptive to discussing these topics with me, perhaps because I don’t immediately blame them for not being as “enlightened” as liberal Westerners. I always think of my own parents and the views they held on such taboo issues. If I were to discussion intersexuality and transgenderism in future seminars, I would introduce the subject by referring to N.O. Body’s memoirs and to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Danish Girl.</i></span></div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-23336816854567347742016-08-02T14:45:00.001-07:002016-08-03T09:16:24.864-07:00Misogyny and Motherhood in US Politics<br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Misogyny and Motherhood in U.S. Politics</span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Like many Canadians, I spent the last two weeks (late July 2016) glued to my television set, watching the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. By the end of it, I was sick to death of hearing what a good parent Hillary Clinton was.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fSbeHh_VvmU/V6ETpNvQYSI/AAAAAAAAAms/nX-8iRcd-X0DFwWQ72DSBXyHPuuoU367gCLcB/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fSbeHh_VvmU/V6ETpNvQYSI/AAAAAAAAAms/nX-8iRcd-X0DFwWQ72DSBXyHPuuoU367gCLcB/s200/untitled.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hillary Clinton</td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m a Clinton fan. I am very impressed by her 45-year-long history of public service, starting with her work trying to ensure that schools were desegregated and that children with disabilities attended school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I am even more impressed that she was US Secretary of State for four very difficult years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I admire tremendously her organizational and negotiating skills. I can’t understand why as Secretary of State she didn’t separate her professional and personal emails (something that as a professional woman, I routinely do) but I don’t think that disqualifies her from the Presidency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think Ms. Clinton has been given a raw deal in US politics (a raw deal that the Canadian press also picks up on with its insistence on reporting on her supposed “untrustworthiness” instead of all her accomplishments and commitment to the public good).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>I think a lot of the hostility to her is outright misogyny; how dare she be so competent, how dare she be so self-confident, how dare she be so cool?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>She had to counteract that image and present herself as warm and “human” during the Democratic convention.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So it didn’t surprise me when Michelle Obama started her long speech by talking about how Hillary was a good parent and grandparent, and cared so much for “our children and grandchildren”. But it did surprise me that her entire speech was woven around that theme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>There was a point where she could have switched to Clinton’s accomplishments, her organizational skills, her views on foreign policy, etc. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It also sickened me that Mrs. Obama had to present herself as just a wife and mother. Michelle Obama is a brilliant lawyer, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, but she’s spent the last eight years suppressing her professional qualifications and her intellect, focusing on children, exercise, and a healthy diet. Perhaps she learned from Hillary Clinton’s faux pas in 1992, when Clinton mentioned in an interview that she hadn’t spent her time before the election baking cookies, preferring to focus on her professional career. That should not have been controversial, but it was (perhaps deliberately) misconstrued by the misogynist press as a denigration of housewives. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This nonsense about women politicians having to be good wives-and-mothers does not go on in the rest of the world, as far as I am aware. Recently Teresa May succeeded David Cameron as Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: When her opponent Andrea Leadsom claimed that she would be a better Prime Minister than Ms. May because she had children and Ms. May did not, she suffered a very quick fall from grace. And as far as I know the political fates of Angela Merkel (Germany), Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina) have not been tied to their qualifications or lack thereof as mothers, whatever one might think of them. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VF2KrQT1CDk/V6ETykG45_I/AAAAAAAAAm0/F3ZhdsSrzMAXU53j7l7xuAh8DFHo6OFJwCLcB/s1600/thCGJFH2FW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VF2KrQT1CDk/V6ETykG45_I/AAAAAAAAAm0/F3ZhdsSrzMAXU53j7l7xuAh8DFHo6OFJwCLcB/s1600/thCGJFH2FW.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Angela Merkel</td></tr></tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1hNY40VVEDw/V6ETufO-l7I/AAAAAAAAAmw/V2Xm3XjTLqcEPvKxeuNG9P_s5i9zzrcFwCLcB/s1600/bachelet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1hNY40VVEDw/V6ETufO-l7I/AAAAAAAAAmw/V2Xm3XjTLqcEPvKxeuNG9P_s5i9zzrcFwCLcB/s1600/bachelet.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michelle Bachelet</td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">People who study genocide know that being a good parent doesn’t necessarily make you a good politician or even a good person. By all accounts Rudolf Hӧss, the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp, was a good father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He did his job—killing Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Polish anti-Nazis—during the day and then returned home in the evening to the bosom of his family. Lots of German women, many of them probably excellent mothers, joined the Nazi Party (see Claudia Koonz, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, The Family, and Nazi Politics</i>, St. Martin’s Press, 1987). So I’m prepared to believe that even an ignorant, racist, narcissistic egoist like Donald Trump might have been a good father (though despite his children’s’ testimonials, I rather doubt it.)</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m really glad that in my several decades as a professor no one has ever asked me how good a mother I am. When I publish books or receive academic awards my son&nbsp;does not have to show up to testify that I am a good mother; who knows what he would say. As for chocolate chip cookies, the ones he baked as a child were better than any I ever made.&nbsp;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Professional women should unite to defend Michelle and Hillary against the pressure to present themselves as “just” wives-and-mothers when they are so much else.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here's a link to an article about how much negative press Clinton is getting, compared both to her former opponent, Bernie Sanders, and to Donald Trump. </span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;https://www.good.is/articles/hillary-clinton-negative-press </span></div><br /><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br /></div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6700283514603333187.post-71022569133400113492016-08-02T13:19:00.000-07:002016-08-02T13:19:35.032-07:00A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara: Book Note<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;">A Little Life</span></i><span style="font-family: &quot;broadway&quot;; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;">by Hanya Yanagihara: Book Note<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Hanya Yanagihara’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Little Life </i>(Doubleday, 2015) is a very long novel (720 pages) that’s been getting a lot of praise. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>I finished reading it a couple of weeks ago. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Two of my friends have also read it: the one I would have predicted would hate it loved it, and the one I would have predicted would love it hated it. You might not want to read further though, if you haven’t already read the novel, although it isn’t giving much, if anything, away to tell you what it’s about.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oRR7HiC3ZmU/V6EAHj5sIMI/AAAAAAAAAmc/WBgbjEGO9e0cYeL_VJVNSNcFOctH6BDsgCLcB/s1600/thVAUNY0UH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oRR7HiC3ZmU/V6EAHj5sIMI/AAAAAAAAAmc/WBgbjEGO9e0cYeL_VJVNSNcFOctH6BDsgCLcB/s200/thVAUNY0UH.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The novel’s protagonist, Jude St. Francis, is a highly accomplished man who was severely abused and prostituted when he was a boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He is also progressively disabled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>So in excruciating detail you read<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>about what you probably knew only in passing from news articles about adult male survivors of childhood abuse; many loathe themselves, blame themselves for what happened to them, ask themselves all the time what they did to bring the abuse on. You also get a fictionalized, but I think probably accurate, description of how child victims of sexual abuse are groomed by their abusers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And even though it’s a novel, you can’t just turn the page and forget about what happens to these boys, as I do while reading the latest scandal about abuse of boys by trusted authority figures. I spend a lot of time swearing at the Catholic Church when I read these accounts, but it’s not only Catholic “brothers” and “fathers” who do this kind of thing: it’s also teachers, Protestant ministers, rabbis, and a lot of other people to whom we entrust our sons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the case of Jude St. Francis, you also get details, page after page after page, about what it’s like to be progressively more and more disabled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>There’s a lot in the novel about his sense of pride, his unwillingness to admit his disabilities, his determination to manage on his own as long as he can. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Some decades ago my husband and I watched a television program called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Rockford Files</i>. Rockford, a private investigator, was forever getting beaten up and then just walking away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>So then you begin to think that’s how it really works: it isn’t. A beating can leave injuries and scars that last a lifetime. One of my students was beaten up in the 1980s by members of a motorcycle gang who were angry that they were denied entrance to a student-only pub at McMaster University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>My student just happened to be walking by at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>He was severely injured and almost blinded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sexual abuse can leave both physical and psychological scars. For some people, they never go away. The psychological abuse intensifies when people blame themselves, asking themselves constantly if they could have done something else, if they could have avoided their abusers. Many of the people whose accounts are printed in the newspapers mention these feelings of shame and guilt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Many engage in self-harm and some commit suicide.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If you can take it, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Little Life </i>is a very compelling novel that tells you a lot about abuse and disability. The historian Lynn Hunt in her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inventing Human Rights</i> (W.W. Norton, 2007) argues that the emergence of novels in 18<sup>th</sup>-century Europe allowed readers to empathize with the fictional characters; this extended to a capacity to empathize with real people in their real environments. This is what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Little Life</i> does; it extends our ability to empathize with abuse survivors and people with disabilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One very important criticism of the novel: the cover features a photograph by Peter Hujar called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orgasmic Man. </i>This is absolutely the wrong photograph for this book. One of the saddest lines in it is something like “Being an adult means you never have to have sex again.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div>Rhoda Howard-Hassmannhttps://plus.google.com/103434878172531384823noreply@blogger.com0